


The Name of Things to Come

by ExpatGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2016, Drinking & Talking, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Hunter Castiel, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Worth Issues, Switching, Team Free Will, canon-divergent after s11e10 "The Devil in the Details"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:47:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: They’re back. All three of them, upright and breathing, under one roof. If things are a little weird as Dean and Castiel try and navigate their relationship, well, Dean’s going to do his best to put things right.For a little while it seems like things might just work out okay, after all. And then suddenly, Cas disappears. As the Winchesters try and figure out why he went AWOL and how to bring him home, Castiel begins to hunt: both for things that go bump in the night, and for some kind of meaning in his self-imposed exile. What he doesn’t understand is that he won’t find what he’s looking for until he stops running.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First, some notes: As you'll see in the tags, there's some minor Cas/others in here, but Dean and Cas are endgame. I felt it was really important that Cas have experience with other partners so that he has a better understanding of himself, and of how he feels about Dean.
> 
> Also, Elphinstone isn't real. It's the name of a very important town in _Lolita_. It's based on my memories of Estes Park, CO, which _is_ a real place, and very beautiful in the autumn.
> 
> There are a few musical nods in here, too. 
> 
> And last but not least: Thank you to [VaryuPon](https://varyupon.tumblr.com/) for the artwork that actually made me bite my own hand out of sheer emotion. Hopefully I've been a reasonably decent person to work with! ;)

They lost Cas for the last time somewhere outside of Altoona.

But, Dean admitted, as he recalled the last few months of useless searching, maybe they’d never gotten him back to begin with. Not really. He looked at the list in his hands: Dates. Near-misses. Hunts that were over before he and Sam had even arrived. And a name. A name that was a little too fucking obvious to be _just chance_.

Maybe it was him. It had never been before. Every lead came up dry as a Mormon wedding. But hope was a monster that Dean couldn’t seem to kill, the only one that beat him, every single time. Dean had a feeling about this one. It was all too coincidental. The dead-end hunts were too tidy, the kill sites too clean, too... _angelic_ to be anyone but Castiel. What other angel would possibly be slumming it in the Midwest? Any other would’ve gotten some sense and headed upstairs, somewhere out of the Winchesters’ orbit entirely. It had to be him. And even if it wasn’t, it was probably someone who knew angels, someone Dean might be able to hold over a barrel until they coughed up some intel.

Either way, they weren’t stopping until they reached Elphinstone, five hundred miles and change away.

The cooler in the back held a twelve pack of Kingdom (six each), four smoothies (two each), and twenty sandwiches. Next to it was a jar of holy oil, one of the few they had left. In the trunk, safely tucked away, there was a box of waterproof matches, wire, pins, and an ignition device of Dean’s own design. He’d spent almost a week on it.

Dean climbed into the car, where Sam already waited, and pointed her west, toward the setting sun. He settled his sunglasses on his face and turned the radio on.

“Ready?” Sam asked.

“Ready.”

They’d find him. And this would be the last time.

****

After it was over, the... _thing_ with Amara and Lucifer and God, they’d driven back to the bunker. Dean had intended to drive through the night. As they crossed into Pontiac, they could still see the smoke from where the argument had gotten out of hand. No matter, it was all over now. And everybody lived. For once, everybody lived.

They lost time hiding from every fire truck and police car in the county, as their sirens wailed, much too late, towards the mess. _Good luck with that,_ Dean thought, watching from the copse of trees where they hid. That had eaten almost two hours of potential travel time, and by the time they’d gotten a move on, the realities of the last few days (weeks, months) hit Dean with all the finesse of a sixteen wheeler.

The sky glowed, a deep blue saucer with mauve-gold along its rim. It wasn’t even eight pm, but suddenly Dean couldn’t have stayed awake if there’d been a knife to his throat.

Dean spared a glance in the rearview. He’d marshaled these looks through the long Midwestern miles like something precious, sips of water in the desert. He always looked away before Cas noticed. It was possible he was a coward. But mostly it was because, like now, whenever Dean took in the sight of Cas, he found it hard to look back at the road.

Cas sat with blood-streaked hands quiet in his lap, leaning against the window and looking at nothing in particular, perfectly docile.

He hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten him in the car, and the only one he’d said then was “yeah”, when Dean asked if he was okay. The way he’d said it killed the question of celebratory drinks. Though none of them were in any state to be going out in public, really.  No way they could get a motel, either, looking like the survivors of a diesel fire in an abattoir. So they drove on, and Dean looked at him from time to time.

(If he ever wanted to drive himself crazy, Dean suddenly realized, all he had to do was watch Cas breathe. Watch the way his eyes softly closed and softly opened again. All of it. Any of it.)

The car drifted. Dean corrected course, then looked at Sam. But he was down for the count, face slack and limbs inelegant. Like this, he looked like the thirteen year old that Dean had to remind himself wasn’t there anymore.

“Cas?” This time Dean allowed their eyes to meet in the mirror. Cas’ gaze tracked to him, a slow drag, cold and planetary. Dean tried to keep his tone light, but even he could feel the heavy edges to it. “You, uh…” He cleared his throat. “You wanna take over? I’m bushed. Don’t think I can go much further.”

The suggestion didn’t seem to sink in, instead bobbing along on the surface of Cas’ understanding. Not good.

“I mean, if you’re up for it,” he said. “You need to...to,” he hesitated.  “Sleep, maybe?”

Cas shook his head, his eyes darting away, suddenly quick and skittish.

“No, I don’t need to sleep.”

Practically a monologue after the last five hours of silence.

“So…”  
  
Something dark and complicated lurked on Cas’ face for a moment. Two years ago, Dean might have been able to read what it was. He sure couldn’t now.

“Might be better if we pull off somewhere,” Cas said at last.

Dean tried not to feel that like a body blow, but his hurt at Castiel’s offhand dismissal surprised him. His fingers clenched around the wheel involuntarily. He tried again, and congratulated himself on keeping his voice non-threatening, a skill he no longer thought he possessed. He should work on that, he decided.

“I dunno, man,” he said, with a yawn that quickly became real, “I really need to stretch out. Can’t do that in the front.”  Dean debated for a moment, with his heart hammering. Then he sent out a depth charge. Because why not. _Why the hell not_. “You offering to share the backseat with me?”

He allowed himself one more, very deliberate, look in the rearview, and saw the moment when the hit landed. Cas swallowed. His eyes flicked down and then up, just once, like a spark startled from a burnt out candle. Then it extinguished. And what did that mean? _God_ , Dean felt like he was trying to read a well-loved book in a language he’d never even seen before.

“Pull over,” Cas said, after a moment. “I’ll drive.”

For some reason, his sudden acceptance stung a little, too. Dean was too tired to contemplate why.

“Sure you’re up to it?” he asked, a touch petulantly.

“I said I’ll drive, Dean.”

“Yeah. Okay, thanks.”

Sam mumbled at their sudden stop, still three-quarters asleep.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Cas is on the next shift.”

“Mm.” Sam was instantly asleep again. Easy. Familiar. Like it was something that happened all the time.

Dean looked at Cas as they passed each other, giving him an encouraging half-smile, and waited for Cas to comment on the momentousness of the occasion. But Cas just climbed in the front seat, adjusted the mirrors and solemnly checked for traffic, before pulling out. He maintained the speed limit to the mile.

Dean had witnessed Cas driving before, and this was not remotely similar.

“Hands at ten and two, very law-abiding, ” he noted. He stifled another large yawn. “Where’d you learn to drive, anyway?” he asked as he settled into the back.

He slurred a little from exhaustion, making his tone sound less needling and more curious. Which was a good thing. Cas had probably had enough needles being stuck in him to last a lifetime.

“I memorized an Idaho driver’s manual.” He didn’t look at Dean, just focused intensely on the road ahead, squinting a little. “I figured if children could manage it, even I could.” He shrugged. “Plus, I’ve watched you do it.”

That jolted something in Dean, something he wanted to examine, but he was too tired to actually look at. “Good stuff,” he murmured instead. Cas might have said something else after that, but he didn’t hear it.

A half-formed memory rose up to greet him as sleep pulled him under, something warm and soft in the dark: curling up in this same spot while his parents drove home through nighttime streets, talking in low voices about things he was too young to understand, being carried to bed after.

It was the best sleep he’d had in years.

****

They reached Elphinstone by Thursday morning. It was a clear, cool day in the russet haze of early October. They sat in a diner eating bison steaks and eggs, and drinking coffee so strong that even Sam was impressed.

Sam called Jody to let them know they’d arrived. The guy, whoever it was ( _Cas,_ Dean thought, looking again at his list. _Has to be._ ) last surfaced less than a week ago. If the pattern held, he was heading this way, anyway, before circling back towards Kansas, in a weird, lopsided circuit.

They’d planted the seeds of a hunt--wendigo, rare enough and close enough that anyone who knew them would know they’d never pass it up---two days ago, and Claire put Cas on the scent last night. Dean could feel all the clockwork parts clicking slowly together in the background, and now it was almost time to see if it ran, see if the trap was subtle enough to catch their quarry.

A little later, Claire texted Dean: _Indiana. It was him. Poltergeist too_

And then: _OK he says he’ll be there in abt 5 hours._

And then: _Don’t screw this up._

They both looked out the window, to a nearby pond where a row of ducks swam. A guy stood and watched a young girl unsuccessfully throw bread at them, while he balanced another squirming kid on his hip.  It was all terribly wholesome, Dean thought.

“Hey,” Dean said, around a mouthful of toast.

“Hmm?” Sam asked, without turning his head. They’d reached the point of tension where it was physically impossible to be wound up any more, and so had instead entered a period of calm: the zen of overwhelming anxiety.

“We should come here again. After.”

“They’re only open for breakfast.”  
  
“Okay, so we’ll come back tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” Sam said, after a moment. He looked like he was going to say something, something Dean probably wouldn’t like, but then reconsidered.  He took a thoughtful sip of his coffee, then held the mug up. “He’ll like this, if nothing else.”

Dean smiled, a small thing, but the first one in months that didn’t feel like it was tacked in place.

****

They didn’t even look for cases for the first two weeks. Sam changed their voicemail greetings, directing all callers to text Eileen. Then he turned off all but their personal phones.

“I feel kinda weird doing this, I gotta be honest with you, Sam,” Dean said, looking at the silent array of phones. “Feels like...hiding.”

“Never bothered Dad,” Sam said, pressing _save_ on the last one. “And if John Winchester could outsource once in awhile, then we sure as hell can, too.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dean said, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “We’ve got other hunters willing to help us, we might as well take them up on it, right?”

“Plus, she’s cute, right?”

Sam looked down to hide his smile. “Whatever.” He yawned. “And dude, let’s face it: we’re pushing forty, and it’s starting to push back.”

“You saying we’re old?” Dean stretched, ignoring the loud popping noise in his shoulder.

“I’m saying...this isn’t a normal job, Dean. I’m saying, maybe once in awhile we ought to consider that we’re _human fucking beings_ , not machines. I know you like hunting, Dean. Sometimes I do, too. But man, remember what we talked about?”

Dean looked away. “We talk about a lot of things, Sam.”

“You know what I mean. We can’t...we can’t be human beings if we’re running after every single hunt in the country. I’d say if anyone needs to take it easy sometimes, it’s us.”

“Well,” Dean said, reluctantly. “I am...kind of tired.” Kind of tired. The way that the plains of Nebraska were kind of flat, the ocean was kind of salty. “Maybe we could use some downtime.”

“Yeah. And Dean,” Sam said, looking at him and, oh shit. This wasn’t his _puppy-dog_ look or his _your-feelings-are-valid_ look, it was his _get-your-shit-together-Dean_ look. “Maybe it’s time you thought about... _something_. Maybe it’s time we both did.”

And Dean, who maybe was a coward about some things, and maybe was trying not to be a coward anymore, did what he never did, and looked right back at Sam. “Yeah, Sam. Maybe it is.”

Sam blinked in surprise, but then nodded, serious and pleased in equal measure. Then his focus snapped to somewhere behind Dean. He put on a gentle smile. “Hey, Cas. You taking a break from _Daredevil_?”

Dean turned so sharply that he gave himself a neck twinge. He grimaced, sucking air in through his teeth. “You okay?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck. Cas was probably sick of him asking that, since he did it basically every time Cas showed his face. But he couldn’t seem to stop; it was like an involuntary muscle, striated with years of not asking (or not asking the right way).

“I’m okay,” Cas said. That was involuntary, too. “I...thought I heard you call me.” Dean could feel Sam’s pointed look on the side of his face, which he ignored.

Cas stood there awkwardly, straight and stiff, like he hadn’t been in this body before, as though the floor might reject his weight at any time. “Do you want me to…”

“Sure,” Dean said, before Cas had even finished.

He wasn’t sure what Cas was even asking, but he didn’t much care any more. He wanted Cas to do basically anything at this point that involved interacting with them. Cas took three slow steps towards him, then reached out his hand, towards the spot where Dean had been worrying the sore muscle. Dean didn’t brush it off, the way he might have done in the past for such a minor complaint, just tipped his head to the side in invitation. A moment later, the spasm stopped and the pain disappeared. Cas’ fingertips (only the fingertips, Dean noticed--barely the suggestion of a touch) immediately withdrew. Then so did Cas. Dean tried not to be disappointed, and he tried not to hear alarm bells.

Because this was definitely Cas. He’d made them check.

****

Dean had returned from the car with the final armload of gear to find Cas waiting for him in front of the war room table. On the table was a colorful collection of resins and powders, a crumbling old book, and a white ceramic blade, laid next to an incantation bowl. His tie was draped across the back of a chair, the blood on it drying from red to brown.

“What’s with the art project?” Dean asked.

“Security measures,” Cas said. His expression was tense.

Dean frowned in confusion. “We got plenty of those already, Cas.” He took a breath, tried on a less strident tone. “But you wanna add more, go for it. Better safe than sorry.”

“No,” Cas said. The word was abrupt and angular. Clearly Dean wasn’t the only one having trouble speaking like a normal human being. Celestial being. Being. Whatever. “I need you to do something.”

“Uh, yeah, sure, whatever you need.” Dean moved towards the hall. “But can it wait half an hour? I swear I’ve got dirt _embedded_ in...places. I really gotta hose myself down. A whore’s bath just ain’t gonna cut it. And you definitely need one, too. You look like you just fought a bear in a coal mine.” Dean looked back as he passed Cas and stopped short, brought up hard by the sight of Cas holding the blade, hilt-first, towards him. The look in his eyes reflected holy fire at Dean. “Or...we could do it now. What is it?”

“It’s a spell.”

“Okay,” Dean said slowly, setting the bedroll and box of salt shells down on the nearest chair. “What for?” Cas was approaching whatever this was sideways, which meant it was probably important and probably not good.

“It’s…” Cas looked away, thinking. His hand was still out, still with the hilt extended. He shook his head, a sketchy, agitated movement. “There’s not a direct English translation. It’s a...roll call?”

Well, _that_ wasn’t what he expected. “What, like in home room?” He looked at the blade. “You want to make sure we’re all here? Cas, you literally watched Sam and me walk in here twenty minutes ago.”

“Not for you and Sam. For me.”

“Uh…” Dean said again. “Is this...are you…” He scratched a phantom itch on his forehead with his thumbnail, feeling lost.  “You’re standing right here, Cas. I promise you. You’re in the bunker. You’re...you’re not hallucinating, okay?”

“Dean, I know where I am. I just spent the last five hours driving here.”

“Then _what_?”

Cas looked to be in actual physical pain, and Dean took an instinctive step towards him. “You had Lucifer in your midst for _days_ before you realized who it was.”

Dean’s next step towards Cas died, and he reeled back a little, as though slapped. “What, you wanna talk about how we’re shitty friends _right now_? Can I at least get a beer in me before we start compiling lists?”

“ _No_ , why can’t you understand? You had a malevolent supernatural being _in your home_. One that wore _this_ body,” he said, gesturing to himself. “You need to be more careful.”

A cold realization seeped into him as he looked at Cas, slowly at first, like rainwater, then all at once, like a wave slapping his chest. “You want...a _roll call_? Like, you’re asking me to ID you?”

“Yeah, I am,” Cas said, holding out the blade again.

“I know it’s you, Cas.” Something inside him was swaying dangerously, about to land on its knees in the gutter. “I was there when Lucifer got eighty-sixed.”

“Just...take the blade, Dean.”

“No.”

“You were fine with restraining me when I was under the attack dog curse. This is the same kind of thing.”

“Fuck you.” The words were out before he even realized he’d thought them. “I wasn’t _fine with it_ , I hated it.” For the second time, he watched a hit land, but this was a volley he hadn’t meant to send. “Okay, look…”

“Everything okay in here?” Sam asked from the entrance of the hallway. At least _he’d_ had the good sense to go straight for the shower. His hair was still wet, and he stood holding a clean shirt balled up in his hands. He must’ve heard raised voices and come running before he’d even finished getting dressed.

Dean considered saying everything was fine, but Sam wasn’t an idiot, and Cas still had the blade, though his arm had dropped back to his side. “Cas wants us to ID him.”

“Uh, ID you? For what?”

“For your own safety.”

“He wants us to make sure we’ve got the right person in there,” Dean said, jabbing a finger at Cas and then crossing his arms.

Sam frowned, taking that in. He bought time by pulling his shirt over his head and running his hands through his hair. When he looked back up, his face was calm and composed.

“Cas, you realize that by asking Dean to test you, you’ve just proven it’s actually you, right?”

“You need to be _sure_ , Sam,” Cas said, like they were irrational children. “After...after everything that’s happened, you need to be sure.”  
Sam held up his hand to stop whatever Dean was going to say. “We _are_ sure,” he said in his most gentle tone of voice. “Cas, the fact that you’re insisting on it is proof enough. Don’t you see that?”

Cas looked torn between rolling his eyes, throwing a punch, and weeping. He settled for turning away and resting his palms on the table, leaning straight-armed and heavy-headed. “Will one of you, please,” he said in a neutral voice that was tinged with brimstone, “do as I ask, just once?”

“Why the hell are you even asking?” Dean said. The dirt in his skin seemed to be sinking in ever deeper as they stood there debating.

“Because…” He saw Cas tilt his head heavenwards, as though the words would come pouring down like Revelation. Maybe they used to, who knew. They didn’t now.

“It’s important to you,” Sam said, when it became clear that Cas couldn’t, or wouldn’t, finish his thought.

Cas dropped his head and nodded, with his back still turned.

“Alright,” Sam said quietly. He stepped in close and picked the blade up from where Cas had set it. “Come on. We’ll do it, then it’s done. And then you and Dean can hit the showers.”

“Sam…”

“Dean, let’s just take five minutes to…” He looked down at the book. His frown returned as he read. “What _is_ this?”

“It’s a _roll call,_ ” Dean said gruffly, looking away.

“Uh, yeah. Okay.” Sam said, pulling the book towards him. “A...very definitive one.”

“You need to be _sure_ ,” Cas repeated, holding his hand over the bowl.

“Yeah, well, this’ll do it.”

“Exactly.” Cas held his hand over the incantation bowl more insistently.

Something in Sam’s voice troubled Dean.“Wait a minute,” he said, “what do you mean...”

But Sam had already made the cut, clean across the palm, and blood spattered loudly into the bowl. He began speaking and Dean saw Cas practically seize up before the fourth word was said. But he kept his eyes locked on Sam and his face impassive, stone-soldier. The spell ended with something that sounded like a question. The contents of the bowl sent up a pillar of flame, white and smokeless. Cas’ eyes flashed at the same moment. He gritted his teeth as though he’d been struck. He took in a deep breath and said something in reply, followed by his name. Or rather, it sounded like his name had been dragged out of him by the roots.

The fire immediately extinguished.

It had taken less than two minutes, but Cas was breathing as though he’d just run to the stateline and back. He sagged slightly, head bowed toward his chest. When he looked up, there was a trickle of blood running from his nose.

“What the hell,” Dean said, through clenched teeth, “was that?”

“Necessary,” Cas said. He wiped the blood from his face with an anxious expression and looked back over his shoulder. The incantation bowl was empty, with not even a trace of ash. This didn’t seem to lessen Cas’ anxiety. “Perhaps you should do it again, Sam. Just to…”

“Nope. Once is enough, Cas,” Sam said, setting down the book and closing it gently but firmly. “Congratulations, you’re still you.” He clapped Cas on the back as he walked past, heading toward the kitchen.

“You wanna explain?” Dean said, after a moment.

“I told you, it was…”

“Necessary. Yeah, I get that. What _was_ it?”

Cas rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “It’s a--”

“If you say ‘roll call’ again, so help me, Castiel...”

“It’s an interrogation technique,” Cas said before Dean could come up with a suitable threat, “used by Heaven’s Intelligence Office. Or rather, it’s...the beginning of an interrogation procedure.”

Dean tried to take that in, and found that he couldn’t. “You just had Sam go Guantanamo on your ass?”

“No, like I said: it’s the beginning of an interrogation, not the actual process itself.” He picked up the bowl and examined it from all angles as he spoke. “It forces the subject to identify himself. Puts him in a position to...be receptive.”

“Receptive.”

“To the actual interrogation.”

“Well, that’s super creepy.”

“That’s Heavenly persuasion.” He set the bowl down. “Division, rank, name,” he said, to the middle distance.

“What?”

“That’s what it requires. Before it...lets go. Lucky for me it accepts, uh, former posts.”

“And what if it didn’t?”

“Then there would have been a hell of a lot more blood.” He smiled, rueful and mostly to himself. “You know, the longest I lasted without answering was three days. Earth days. Time’s different up there, of course.”

“Cas...”

“You were right. I need a shower,” Cas said suddenly. Well, his wings weren’t working, Dean thought cynically. This was as close as he could get to flying off.

Dean briefly considered making a joke about joining him, but he wasn’t really in a joking mood.

****

The abandoned mine was about as pleasant as he expected. Dean hoped it wouldn’t fall down on their heads before they’d managed to finish what they’d set out to do. By tonight this would all be over. They’d all walk out of here, one way or another. But, he wondered, as he watched Sam pour out a circle of holy oil, would they be walking out together?

“Well?” Sam asked, straightening up and wiping his hand on his jeans. “Think that’ll do it?”

Dean considered. “No,” he said after a moment. “Pour another line across the entrance of the mine. He’s a clever bastard, and he’s gonna be keyed up. He might smell a trap before he gets in this far.”

Sam nodded and shook the amphora of oil. “Okay, but I think that’ll be end of this one. We got any more?”

“Hopefully we won’t need any more.”

He was acutely aware that he and Sam had slipped with disturbing ease into hunting mode. He had to remind himself that Cas wasn’t _prey_.

 _Not_ _hunting_ , he thought, as he set the detonator. _Not really. We’re...intervening, that’s all_. If they had to use their knowledge of angelic weaknesses, and of Cas’ personality,  well, they just had to press every advantage they had. This was just a strategy. Cas was a strategist. Cas would understand.

****

Dean dedicated the first of those two blessedly quiet weeks to setting the Impala to rights. It had been warded during the final showdown, but unfortunately, sigils did nothing to prevent damage from good old fashioned shrapnel from good old fashioned explosions. The interior smelled like a trashcan fire, and though she still ran, her idling was as rough as a washboard road. She had some nasty-looking dents in the body. Still, he’d brought her back from worse.

Normally, he worked alone, in his own little bubble of grease-and-benzene tranquility. The ache at the end of the day was satisfying, not punishing, and it was nice to build things rather than kill them, for once. It was as close to meditation as he was ever gonna get. Some (flexible, god _damn_ ) people had yoga. Some had retreats in rural mountains where they woke at dawn and didn’t speak for weeks, which sounded like one of the shittiest vacations imaginable, but hey. Dean, though, Dean had the garage and everything in it. The one place where his dad’s encouragement hadn’t been edged with blood and disappointment. A place where he could be, justifiably, alone, and the one place where he could stand his own company well enough that he didn’t want anyone else’s.

But now? Well. Now he was in the mood for company. Specific company.

He hesitated outside of Castiel’s door, wondering how, exactly, he could phrase this. Cas had been weird the last few days. Well. Weirder. But then, Dean couldn’t say if this was _actually_ the case, or if he had simply turned some of his hyper-vigilance, finely-tuned towards Sam’s well being for so long, towards Cas, and it was going into overdrive as it worked through several years of backlog. Cas’ hands were slow-- _But they don’t shake_ , Dean thought. _That’s good, right?_ \--and his eyes were jumpy. When they spoke, he’d look at Dean and Sam steadily, but the second they were done, his attention skated off somewhere else, somewhere Dean couldn’t see. It reminded Dean a little of Cas in his early days, before he’d managed to hone his eye-contact strategy to something closer to human.

And come to think of it, Cas hadn’t actually _started_ a single conversation since the... _security measures_ debacle. He emerged from his room the instant one of them called for him, but he didn’t seek either of them out. Dean suspected Cas spent his nights in the kitchen. He had no proof of this, except for the lingering sense that _someone_ had been in there. But Cas never voluntarily set a toe inside it during the day, except the one time that Sam had sliced his finger while cutting onions. After a few days they made him join them for meals, but each time quickly became a study in excruciating awkwardness when Cas didn’t seem to have a single goddamn thing to say.

He answered every question about how he was doing with some variation of “I’m fine”, and any question about if he needed anything the same way. In fact, he’d made himself so scarce that, if it weren’t for the constant hum of the TV, Dean wouldn’t have realized there was a third person in the bunker at all.

 _Space_ . They had been trying to give Cas space, thinking that after a few days of R and R, whatever had Cas wound up would slowly begin to unwind itself. There were things they--Dean--needed to talk to him about. Things Lucifer had said that, no matter how much Dean tried to rearrange them in his head to sound like lies, still came out sounding like the truth. There were also, Dean admitted, apologies to make, and maybe even confessions, the words so weighted down by guilt that they practically buckled when he _thought_ about them, forget trying to _say_ them. But Cas barely had his feet on solid ground, and it wouldn’t be fair to rip the rug out from under him with declarations of any sort. And Dean had the cold, persistent feeling that it might be too late, anyway. The very definition of a pointless act: like climbing inside a fifty car pileup to try and fix a cracked windshield.

Give him space, Sam had said, let him get the lay of the land; build up to it slowly and carefully, with simple gestures that could build into bigger talks. He’d emphasized the word _carefully._ “He’s gotta know it’s safe,” Sam had said, looking out across the river over the lip of his beer bottle, “before he lets himself believe...anything. And that might take a while, Dean.” He spoke like he’d given it a lot of thought. He didn’t specify exactly what ‘it’ was, but then, he didn’t have to.

Space. Right.

Well, fuck that. That was enough space. Dean knocked.

The laugh track died mid-crescendo. There was a faint sound of movement, then the door opened. Cas lifted his chin and looked at Dean, but no ‘hello’ was forthcoming.

“Hey. You busy?“ Dean asked, aiming for gently neutral. It was the kind of voice and smile he might use on a case, with a traumatized victim or a bereaved spouse, which felt wrong, but his usual modes of approaching Cas didn’t seem appropriate right now.

Cas narrowed his eyes for a moment, like he didn’t understand the question, but said: “No, of course not, Dean. What do you need?”

 _What do you need_ , the second most common phrase out of Cas’ mouth these days, following only _I’m fine_ in frequency.

“Me? Nothin’. I just wanted to see...” He stopped, knowing what the answer would be before he finished the phrase. “What you were up to,” he said instead. He stretched and rested his hands against the top of the door jamb in a show of casualness that brought him to the very edge of Castiel’s space. This earned him a blink and a quick glance at his mouth, before Cas’ eyes snapped back up to his again. Cas straightened up fractionally, almost at attention.

“Watching the series you suggested.”

“Still on _Golden Girls_ , huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s a classic,” Dean said, floundering for a foothold in the conversation. “What episode are you up to?”

“Rose has just admitted she has a long-running addiction to painkillers, and they’re trying to convince her to go to a rehabilitation center.”

“Ah,” Dean said. “Rose. Good, uh, good character. Betty White’s always a winner. I mean, I was always more of a Blanche man, myself. But Rose, she really held the group together.”

“I can’t tell if the others like her or not,” Cas said, still at attention. “I get the sense they find her stories about her childhood tedious and irrelevant, but I enjoy them.” He looked sharply away, then back. “I don’t suppose it matters. What can I help you with, Dean?”

Dean felt vaguely like he’d just gotten whiplash from a car he didn’t even realize he was crashing in. “I...I was gonna work on the Impala for a while. I’ve gotten the engine diagnostics done. Just need to look at the running gear. Check the chassis. That kinda thing.”

“Well, I...I hope it’s not cracked,” Cas said, with a grave look.

“Yeah, that’d seriously suck,” Dean agreed, quietly thrilled to be talking shop with Cas.

“Yeah,” Cas said, smiling back. The smile sat wrong with Dean somehow. There was something...end-of-the-world about it. “It would.” He looked away again, less sharply this time, his focus switching to somewhere over Dean’s shoulder.

“So,” Dean said into the growing silence. He re-engaged his friendly FBI voice in an attempt to keep the edge of irritation out of it. “Wanna give me a hand?”

“With the car?”

 _No, genius, with my macrame pot holder collection_ . _Or, I dunno, with the crushing goddamn existential angst of_ **_knowing_ ** _how you feel, and not being able to do anything about it, ‘cause it’d traumatize you when you found out how I learned it. Either, or._

He took a breath, smiled. “Yeah, with the car.” He’d shifted, now leaning cross-armed against the door frame, with one foot braced, filling up all the available room.

“I’m not sure I’d be much use,” Cas said. He’d somehow moved further away, though Dean hadn’t actually seen him take a step back. “Perhaps you’d be better off asking Sam.”

“ _Sam_?” Dean asked, widening his eyes. “Oh man, no that’s...that’s not a good idea.”

“Sam is an exceedingly intelligent man. I’m sure he’d do fine.”

“Yeah, he’s smart as all get-out, but trust me, he’s just not wired for this kind of thing.” Which, okay, wasn’t entirely true; Sam had a solid grasp of basic mechanics and knew the Impala almost as well as Dean did. Hell if he was going to mention that now, though. Cas said nothing, and Dean could feel his veneer of ease cracking. “Look, man, just. Just take a break from the damn show for an hour. It’s thirty years old, it’ll keep a while longer.”

Whatever protest Cas had been forming--and he _had_ been forming one, Dean could see it--died before he gave voice to it. “Alright,” he said to Dean’s chest.

It should have felt like a win. Dean couldn’t figure out why it didn’t. “Great,” Dean said, with a zeal he didn’t feel. “Pay attention, there’ll be a quiz at the end.” Cas gave him a sidelong look, but nodded without a word. “That was a joke, by the way,” Dean said quickly. “I’m not gonna give you a quiz.”

“Alright,” Cas said again, in much the same tone, like whatever Dean chose to do or not do had equal weight with him. Before Dean could comment on this, Cas dipped back into the darkened room. The TV switched off. He exited a moment later, pulling absently at one of the cuffs of his coat.

“C’mon. It’ll be fun,” Dean said. After several long, agonizing moments of emotional arithmetic, he put an arm across Cas’ back, gave his shoulder a squeeze, and steered him towards the garage. Cas let himself be lead, unresisting, and Dean didn't drop his arm. “And anyway, you don’t have to actually _do_ anything if you don’t want. Just...hand me tools. Or, hell, just sit there and look pretty.” His heart gave a little sideways jerk as he slipped that one in, but Cas gave no obvious reaction.

This was the closest they’d stood, the longest Dean had dared to touch him without the buffer of blood or bruise, in such a long time. And Sam was probably right, just coming out and _saying it_ right now was a bad idea. Cas was hanging on to this plane of existence by his teeth, no matter how Dean tried to sugarcoat it, and something like that might knock him off entirely. He squeezed Cas’ shoulders a little tighter without realizing it. He felt reassuringly solid and warm against Dean, and Dean fought down the urge to just...turn his head into the crook of Cas’ neck and breathe in.

Cas wasn’t the only one that needed to get the lay of the land, Dean knew. The last few years had shifted the topography of their friendship almost beyond recognition, creating gulfs and carving out sinkholes, sending up whole mountain ranges of unspoken words almost overnight.

“Dean,” Cas was saying, in a tone of voice that suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get Dean’s attention.

“Huh?”

“We can’t fit on the stairs like this.”

“Oh,” Dean said, dropping his arm reluctantly. “Yeah, sorry.” He kept his hand on the small of Cas’ back. An anchor. But for which of them, he didn’t know. That coat irritated him in a way it never normally did. And the tie. It all seemed to fit him even more poorly than it did before, as though Lucifer’s sick little cosplay had made everything hang wrong, inside and out. Dean wanted...not skin, exactly, because the thought of it was too much to bear during daylight hours, but _something_. Cas was wearing it like armor, like it was the only thing holding him up. And Dean wanted him to fall. Dean wanted to catch him this time.

Why _hadn’t_ he gotten rid of the damn outfit, anyway? Dean knew Cas probably didn’t put the same stock in his clothing choices as a human might, but surely this particular set of clothes had too many bad memories to ever truly be comfortable to wear again.

Then again, Dean still had one or two shirts in his closet that seemed to attract bad luck, and he’d never gotten around to getting rid of them. _Should probably just burn that fucking red one_ , he thought bitterly.

Well, and of course, Cas couldn’t afford to go shopping. The only money he had was the fifty dollar bill Dean had dug out of his sock drawer on their second day back.

(The chilly, damp horror that had flitted across Cas’ face as he took it from Dean and asked: “Is, is this...walking around money?” still didn’t make sense.

Neither did the look of confusion that followed when Dean said: “Well, yeah. Gotta make sure you’re not caught short if we get separated the next time we’re on a case.” He’d have to add it to the List of Things to Talk About, though at the current rate, the universe will have collapsed in on itself by the time he finished with it.)

They reached their destination without Dean realizing it. The damn coat seemed to grow scratchier and more irritating the more he looked at it, and he tugged at the lapels with as much good humor as he could muster, drawing Cas towards him a fraction of an inch. “Come on, lose this.” Cas looked at him from the corner of his eye. “It’ll...just get in the way.”

Cas hesitated for a moment, but then took a deep breath and slid the coat from his shoulders. He regarded his shoes as he did, like he’d been scolded. “Hey, there we go,” Dean said gently, taking it and folding it over his arm. He pressed it briefly to Cas’ stomach before laying it on the countertop. “Make yourself comfortable. Stay awhile.” The white of Cas’ shirt was almost startling under the lights of the garage, white like the tail of a fleeing animal. Or a flag of surrender. Either way, Dean didn’t like it much better than the coat.

 _Maybe skin, after all,_ Dean thought, watching the rise and fall of Cas’ chest as he breathed, before guiltily looking back up.

Cas was silent, but Dean saw his jaw work for a moment as he swallowed. He stood at a polite distance and looked at Dean as if doing so hurt. Apparently he’d developed a pretty good sense of personal space from someone, somewhere along the line. “Where, uh, where do you want me?” he asked, to the green Thunderbird behind Dean.

 _Closer than that,_ Dean didn’t say. “Just.” He cleared his throat and took a long step forward. With his personal space bubble well and truly popped, Cas’ eyes landed on his, and the air thrummed like a struck wire. Dean felt it against his skin, heard it in the buzz of the overhead lights. “Anywhere.” For a moment neither said anything, and Dean leaned closer to feel the weighted thrill of just standing and _looking_ , of _seeing_ each other, in a way that he’d kind of worried they’d lost. He was determined to hold it for as long as he could.

Turned out, it wasn’t that long at all. “I lack the ability to do that anymore,” Cas said, looking away and cutting the wire. All the tension bled out. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“Okay,” Dean said, and somehow his hand had moved of its own volition to grip Cas’ elbow, as though Cas might disappear at any moment.

 _Wait, he can’t do that anymore, can he?_ Dean hadn’t asked. Hadn’t wanted to pry.

Cas stared at the point where Dean held him, but didn’t say anything. Dean let go. “Um, here,” Dean said walking quickly over to a metal stool and setting it next to the Impala. He brushed the dust off of it with the bandanna from his back pocket. “Sit down.”

A flicker of confusion--the original flavor, the kind Dean liked best--passed over Cas’ face as he sat, clasped his hands between his knees, and looked up at Dean as though awaiting further instruction.

“What should I do?” Cas asked, startling him out of his thoughts. “I’m still unclear on that.”

For no apparent reason, Dean thought:

_How many should I take?_

_You? You should probably down the whole bottle._

“Uh,” Dean said, shaking away the stray thought. It struck him that this exact scenario, or something very like it, was the kind of thing he’d always...he hesitated to use the word _fantasized_. But it was the kind of daydream he’d occasionally let himself have, an indistinct and muted throb of warm gold that filled up the quiet grey days between hunts. Fixing the car, of course: the two of them elbow-deep in the 8-chambered heart that kept her running sweet. Good honest muscle and grease on knuckles and sweat on the brow and...well. That thought had kept him up more than one night, and not for the obvious reasons. Or, not only for those.

The Lincoln was a dependable piece of machinery: ugly, but solid and sure. Despite its dependability, though, it had years’ worth of neglect to undo, and he wasn’t even sure Cas knew how to change the oil in it. He imagined explaining it---confident and easy to the marrow, the way he so often wasn’t---with Cas asking questions, at once sideways and straightforward. Listening in that intent way of his, as though Dean were the only thing that mattered in that moment, as though what he said was Gospel.

But not just the car. It didn’t escape Dean that Cas had had a pretty rough and unceremonious introduction to the human condition--well, who didn’t--and there was probably a lot he’d experienced that didn’t make much sense to him. Like: _Hey, Cas, here’s how you can tell if someone wants you to babysit, and here’s how you can tell if they want you to…_

Okay, no. Maybe not that one. Not yet, anyway. Cas needed to start picking up what Dean was laying down, first, before he showed _that_ particular card.

But there were lots of other things Cas probably found bewildering even after going native. Stuff he’d filed away on his own list, a list of Weird Human Things, and never gotten around to asking about, what with all the apocalyptic bullshit that had been the focus of his attention for the past eight years.

Well, now here they were, certifiably bullshit-free. For the next few hours, at least.

“Dean?”

“Well, what do you want to know?” He’d been twisting the bandana in his hands, he realized, shaping it into a fair approximation of his stomach. He shoved it back into his pocket.

Cas blinked. “I’m sorry?”

Damn it, Dean needed to get his shit together before he seriously spooked Cas any more than he already had. His chest felt like a seam about to burst. He covered it with the haphazard stitch of a smile. “Hit me.”

“You want me to…” Cas’ gaze slid away from him like a drop of water on a hot pan.

“Ask me questions,” Dean said, laying down on the creeper board and sliding underneath the car to hide the awkward blush that had swept over his face in a wave. “Come on,” he said, once he was safely ensconced. Cas was only visible from the knees down, but even so, the vague unease in him was palpable. “To, uh, help me pass the time.” _There’s words in you somewhere, you bastard, I know it. Just gotta figure out how to pull them out._

“Sam says you dislike being disturbed when you’re working on your car.”

“Yeah well, Sam likes the _Star Wars_ prequels. What the hell does he know?”

Cas was frowning, Dean could tell just from his shoes. “He said Ewan McGregor’s performance elevated the dialogue he was given, and that the world-building was surprisingly nuanced, despite the unevenness of the story.” A pause. “He said the rest of it sucked.”

Dean couldn’t hold in a laugh at that. “Okay, fine. Ewan McGregor could read a phone book and make it good. Point is, maybe I don’t want _other people_ disturbing me, but you…” He paused, swallowed. “I don’t mind if you do it.”

There was a long beat of silence, and Dean realized he hadn’t even begun to inspect the chassis. The white flare of the Maglite blinded him for a moment, before his eyes adjusted.

“Uh,” Cas’ feet shifted slightly. Nerves? “I don’t--What do you want me to ask?” He sounded so...lost. Where was that keen inquisitiveness? Dean never could tell where Cas’ natural curiosity ended and the Heavenly strategist began, but right now neither was making an appearance. Dean felt like he was trying to grab someone’s hand as the tide came in. Problem was, they weren’t grabbing back. He had to help the guy out.

“That’s not how it works,” Dean said, attempting to at least _try_ to focus on the machinery above him. “Just, you know...” He gave up, slid out from under the car and stood up, ostensibly to get the tool box, but mostly to look at Cas’ face. That was more or less all he wanted to do these days. “Okay, what…what about the car? What do you want to know? Or...Let’s, uh, fill in some gaps. What do you already know about your car?”

“It’s crappy, apparently.”

Dean dragged a hand down his face. God, he needed a few shots of something in his system. “That’s not…”

“How do you make your plates untraceable?” Cas asked suddenly, cutting him off.

There was a record scratch sound in Dean’s head. “Uh, I was thinking more like, how to check the washer fluid, but okay.”

“I know how to check washer fluid,” Cas said dismissively. He could also apparently see Dean’s next question forming, heading it off. “I read the owner's manual.”

“You uh, sure did a lot of manual-reading, huh?” The image of Cas in civilian clothes-- and who knew a regular pair of Levi’s could cause an acute existential crisis in a frequently-dead guy in his thirties? Though in Dean’s defense, Cas’ acquisitions hadn’t included a belt, which was unfair--The image of him sitting in some podunk county library, brow furrowed in concentration as he memorized the driver’s manual page by page, filled Dean’s head. Or walking a slow methodical circle around the dull gold bulk of his ( _Crappy_ , Dean’s mind supplied, to which he angrily told himself to shut the hell up) car, painstakingly figuring out how to keep her on the road.

“They're extremely useful sources of information,” Cas said, interrupting his thoughts. “Thorough. Easy to follow. Like incantation books for operating machinery. And...time...wasn’t exactly a resource I had a lot of. I couldn’t afford any more trial and error.”

“Trial and error.”

“I allowed it to run out of gas. I failed to understand the equipment I had taken charge of.”

“No that’s...” Dean said, wiping his hands on his jeans, remembering the way Cas had watched him as he lugged a canister of gas from the gas station seven blocks away and glared into the middle distance while he filled the car up. (“Dean, let me…” he’d said, reaching for the can. “We’re on a tight schedule. Teachable moment’ll have to wait.” Which, of course, it had.)

“You figured it out. You showed good initiative. As usual,” Dean added, with another attempt at an easy grin. Cas remained impassive in the face of Dean’s praise, except for a fractional narrowing of the eyes. Which...weird.

“You switched your Kansas plates to Ohio plates to avoid detection, but you haven’t changed the plates since,” Cas said, after a half a moment too long. “I can only assume that’s because they’re untraceable now.”

 _Okay. Guess I’m dealing with the Heavenly strategist._ This wasn’t the guy asking earnestly if the ‘the bald hunter with the speech impediment’ regretted killing the rabbit he’d spent the whole episode singing about killing. This was the guy asking _how do we kill it_. Not the direction that Dean had hoped this would take, but it was a work in progress, he guessed. But there was something else, too.

“Wait, how’d you know we switched our plates? Sam tell you?”

Cas had trouble looking at him again. “Recon.”

“Recon?” He sat up straighter. “Wait. _Recon_? Man, you were spying on us before we’d even _met_?”

Cas looked stricken. “ _No_. Dean, I was still in command of the garrison at that time. You really think _I_ had time to spy on _you_ with thousands of angels to oversee?” He paused. “Not to mention the ancillary forces, or...” He bit his lip. “Anyway, that’s not important. It was mentioned in the Gospels.”

 _The Gospels._ “Chuck,” Dean groaned. “God. Ugh, I forgot you read those.”

Cas frowned. “Of course I read them. You two were Michael and Lucifer’s vessels.”

“What, they didn’t have you playing PI on the other poor schmucks?”

The frown deepened. “There were other plans being made,” he said, and ignored Dean’s muttered _no shit_. “But those were--above my pay grade. I didn’t have that kind of clearance. We knew there were things missing from the Gospels, so I had to make sure any gaps were filled in. It was my _job_ to pay attention. But I didn’t...I didn’t _spy_.”

The words seemed to rush out of Cas in a flood before he remembered to dam them up again. He looked horrified. Though at what, exactly, Dean couldn’t tell.

Wait.

 _I didn’t spy_.

“Cas, I didn’t...I know you weren’t spying on us, okay? Or I mean, I get that we were under the microscope before we were even born--which, by the way, is really fucking disturbing.” He shook his head, trying to get back on track, and remove the look currently on Cas’ face. “But...but you know that already.” He tried another smile and knew it looked shaky. “I mean, that’s why you ripped up the ending, right?”

“Right,” Cas said, in a voice that suggested he knew he was walking into a trap, he just wasn’t sure how.

“So, whatever, man, you did your job. I mean, your job _sucked_ , but, uh...but that’s _not_ on you. Okay? Nothing you were forced to do is on your hands. You get that, right?”

“I…”

Cas looked away and down. Even his hair seemed defeated. When he looked up, Dean saw the bright glint of something cracking open, warm and vulnerable and strangely _young_ , in a way that Dean couldn’t quite wrap his head around. His hand twitched with the need to reach out and hold. Halfway through the gesture, he realized that he didn’t know if he was aiming for Cas’ shoulder or his face and his arm fell abortively back to his side. Cas followed the movement and when he met Dean’s eyes again, whatever it was that he’d seen was gone, sealed tight. _Smooth, Dean. Real fucking smooth._

“Yes, I...get that. Now. The plates,” Cas said, as though nothing had happened.

“Why’re you so interested in dropping off the radar, anyway?” Dean said, unformed suspicion prickling at him like the first signs of a fever.

Dean was rewarded with an eyeroll that, though only implied, could probably be heard in Nebraska. _There you are_ , Dean thought, suppressing a smile.

“Dean, we perform acts of larceny and fraud as a matter of _course_. Not to mention grave desecration, breaking and entering, assault and battery and...many other things that are probably considered crimes. You and your brother were on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Twice.  I’m still on it. And Sam has a database of every place you’ve disposed of a body since 2007.”

“He _what_?”

“I admit, my knowledge of human laws is a little patchy after 1760 B.C.,” Cas continued, unperturbed, “but I know enough to know that I want to make my plates untraceable. It’s the same reason I re-shape your fingerprints every time I heal you.”

“You _what_?”

“Not drastically,” Cas said, because that was the issue, obviously. “Just enough that they won’t match up to previous hunts, should the authorities dust for prints. You and Sam opt not to wear gloves, after all.”

“Yeah,” Dean said numbly, looking down at his hands. “Too...distancing. Need to be able to feel what I’m doing.”

Cas nodded, and for a moment he was his old self, intent and serious, eyes as sharp as lightning and soft as a Prairie summer. “I understand,” he said, much too gravely for the moment. “Tactility is important for you.” When Dean looked down, Cas’ hand was resting on his upturned palm. Cas noticed a moment later, and quickly withdrew it.

“Nevertheless,” he said, glancing away, “precautions are necessary. So, um...yes. I’d like to make my plates untraceable.”

“It’ll make it kinda hard if your car gets stolen again,” Dean pointed out, with that uneasy feeling still filtering through him.

“Then I’ll have to see that it doesn’t.”

“Yeah.”

Cas was looking at him expectantly and, damn it, there was no actual reason for Dean to be this cagey about this. Cas was right; anything that helped them stay underground (metaphorically, and, in the case of the bunker, literally) was a good precaution to take. It just...sat wrong with him for some reason. Probably his hunter’s instinct going into overdrive from a week off the trail. “Okay,” Dean said, feeling like he’d lost more than an argument. “I, uh, don’t remember the exact spell we used. It was a...Maasai stealth charm, I think? I found it in one of Bobby’s books. Anyway, Sam modified it, so it works on objects as well as people. I’m sure he’s got it saved in one of his... _databases_.”

“Ah,” Cas said, looking down--in thought this time, rather than...whatever it was that was causing his eyes to sink toward the floor like cold air these days. “It renders the numbers invisible.”

“No, just...I mean, people will see them, but won’t be able to hold them in their memory.” Cas looked up, and Dean was pleased to find he could read the curiosity on his face. “The minute they blink or break eye contact, they’ll forget,” He explained. “Everything will seem, you know, _normal_. Normal car--well, badass car, but normal license plate, nothing special.  Nothing that would make them pay extra attention.”

“Then if they try to recall it later, they can’t.” Cas said, with slow approval. “Not accurately.”

Dean nodded. His smile sat easier on his face. Something in his chest was thinking about unclenching. “Right, yeah. Unless, you know, they have some claim of ownership over the car.”

Cas started a little at that, cut his gaze across to where the Impala was still sitting. The dents in her body seemed almost accusatory. “I...see.”

“It’s a little bit trickier with cameras and stuff, but...well, Sam managed to work around it.”

Cas nodded, solemn. “Very well. I...I’ll go speak to Sam.” He turned to go. “Thank you, Dean.”

“Wait, what? That’s..that’s it?” Dean asked, startled.

“I’ll leave you in peace. See you at dinner, Dean.”

****

The first hunt was simple, as hunts went: a chupacabra way outside its normal range, harassing some ranchers in Gillette. It took three nights of covering themselves in sage oil to disguise their scent, and sitting in the dark looking through night vision binoculars. This made Dean hum the _Jurassic Park_ theme until Sam kicked him and told him to be quiet.

“What happened to the ones you made?” Sam whispered, when the only noise was the restless milling of the cattle in the distance. Cas had gone off somewhere, stalking like a coyote through the underbrush.

“What?”

“The night vision binoculars you made out of, like, an old Viewfinder and a busted camcorder.”

“Dude, I was twenty,” Dean scoffed, hoping the infrared didn’t pick up on the blush creeping across his face. “I have no idea where they are. Besides, they were lame. These are way more awesome.”

“I dunno,” Sam said. “I thought they were pretty awesome. I’ll look for them when we get back. Cas can use them.”

“Cas doesn’t need them,” Dean said, barely remembering to keep his voice down.

“I think Cas’ll use them anyway,” Sam whispered. Dean could feel Sam looking at him, even with the almost total absence of light.

A few moments later, Cas came back. He moved almost silently, and it was only the sound of the wind moving his coat that alerted Dean to his presence. Dean grinned at him. “Find anything?”

“No. It may still be full from its last feed.” Cas sat down on the jut of rock next to Dean. He left nearly two feet of space between their bodies, and Dean couldn’t think of an excuse to move over. He turned his attention back to the cattle.

By the third night, some of the charm of the clean country air had started to wear off. Mercifully, though, they found the thing, attracted by the distressed wails of a cornered calf. Chupacabras, at least, were no trouble to kill once you managed to find them. A bullet through the eye and down it went, twitching. It smelled like something that had been dead for a few days already and Dean gagged. The calf cantered away, back to the herd.

“You ever seen one this far north before?” Sam asked, wrinkling up his nose.

“That’s global warming for you,” Dean grunted.

“Should we bury it, burn it, what?”

“Vultures will pick it clean in a day or two.”

“Still, the last thing we need is a couple of spooked ranchers calling the papers.”

“Let me,” Cas said, stepping between them and crouching down next to the chupacabra’s body. He touched its forehead--how could he _stand it_?--and said: “Close your eyes.”

Behind his eyelids Dean saw the flash of white light. When he looked again, there was nothing left.

****

The second hunt involved a haunted clock, like they were in some goddamn Nancy Drew mystery. He joked that they should have called Claire in to handle it, but Cas just shook his head and said Claire’s golf team had to practice for regionals. “She won’t be able to do any active hunting for at least a month. And she’s filling out college application forms.”  

The hunt was over in a day, and Dean was left chomping at the bit. Sam was lobbing them creampuff cases, and he got why, he totally did. But it still galled a little. Hard to step down to the minor leagues when it had been nothing but the majors for the last few years. Then again, the last few years had sucked, so maybe the minors weren’t so bad.

That night he called Claire. “Congratulations, Annika,” he said, closing the door to the microwave in the motel’s kitchenette. He smirked as he heard Sam moving around in the shower, clearly frustrated at how small it was. Then he remembered that Cas had disappeared almost as soon as they got back from the antique shop, and his smirk fell.

“I am pretty awesome, it’s true.”

“And humble, too.”

Claire snorted.

“So, college kid, huh? Where do you wanna go?”

“Ugh, Castiel told you about that? I didn’t want him to say anything until I’d gotten in.”

“Ah, you’ll get in. He’s just excited for you, is all.” The microwave dinged.

“Yeah,” Claire said softly. “I, um, I was thinking….Stanford.”

“ _Stanford_? Claire, that’s great! Wait’ll I tell Sam.”

“No, no, don’t say anything yet! It’s like...a billion dollars a year. I’m probably gonna have to go to community college here for the first two years. I don’t even know if I’ll get in.”

“Trust me,” Dean said, taking a bite of his egg roll. “You’ll get in. And Sam got a full ride.”

“Sam’s a genius.”

“So are you.”

“Shut up,” she said, but he could hear her smile over the phone.

“Nah, that’s great. Sam can help you with scholarship applications and everything. He knows what they’re looking for.”

“Sam knows what who’s looking for?” Sam asked, poking his head out of the bathroom door and rubbing his hair with a towel.

“Claire’s gonna go to Stanford.”

“ _Dean,_ oh my _god_!”

“That’s awesome, Claire,” Sam said, sliding on a clean pair of jeans. “Hit me up when you’re ready to apply, I’ll tell you everything I know. What major?”

“Uh, double major in history and religious studies. Probably.”

Dean frowned and handed an egg roll across to Sam. “There much of a market for those?”

“Yeah, plenty, if you hunt ghosts for a living.”

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but Sam cut him off with a curt shake of his head. “Sounds solid, poindexter,” he said, hoping he sounded sincere. They’d just have to talk about it next time they were in Sioux Falls. They’d bring Cas.

Dean sent off a quick text to the person in question before he climbed into bed at midnight. He heard Cas come in much later. A glance at the clock revealed it to be just after three o’clock. Cas sat quietly in a chair by the door, and neither of them said anything to each other.  Dean fell back to sleep around four, and forgot to ask Cas about it in the morning.

****

A rawhead popped up in Hawkins, some nowhere town in Indiana, where the people seemed unnervingly accepting of the presence of dangerous creatures lurking in the dark and preying on kids.

“Did you kill it?” asked the woman from the house next door, startling Dean as he walked to the car to get a tarp. She was pretty, probably mid-forties. Waifish, with huge liquid eyes that didn’t match the bluntness of her tone.

“What?”

“The thing that went after Louisa Sinclair. You kill it?” She crossed her arms and watched him narrowly.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean said, slowly. “It’s dead. Pretty definitively.”

“Did it...did it have a face?”

“Did it have a _face_?” Dean asked, turning to look at her fully. “What...are you a hunter?”

“I own the local art gallery.” She shook her head. “Just, did it have a face?”

“Yeah? Pretty ugly one, but yeah.  It was...a thing. Called a rawhead.”

She looked relieved. “Rawhead,” she said thoughtfully. “How’d you kill it?”

“Uh,” Dean blinked. “Taser. Or any strong electrical current will work.” Angelic grace, in this case, but she didn’t need to know that.

She smiled for the first time, all earlier tension gone. “Electrical current. Good to know. Okay, thanks.” She shook his hand. “I’m going to go see Louisa at the hospital. Thank you for all your help.” With that, she turned away and headed to her car.

“You’re...welcome.” He opened the trunk. “Weird.”

They hit the bar afterward. An old man who seemed to have become part of the decor bought them all a round of beer, raising his own bottle without a word, before turning his attention back to the television.

“What was that for?” Sam asked.

“Dunno,” Dean said, using the commotion as an excuse to inch his chair closer to Cas. “But don’t look a gift beer in the mouth, I say.” Their shoulders were practically touching, now, and under the table, he pressed his leg against Cas’. It was a small table, he reasoned, and they were all three big guys, if anyone looked they’d just see three friends making the best of their seating arrangement. He caught Cas’ eye as he did it, though, purposeful and deliberate, and increased the pressure between them. “You did good today,” he said tipping the bottle forward. Cas’ throat worked in a very compelling way as he picked up his own beer and clinked it against Dean’s. Dean felt the weight of Cas’ leg press further into his own. “Kept your head on a swivel.”

Sam was watching them, leaning back in his chair and tipping back his beer. “You ought to buy him a shot for that, Dean,” Sam said. “Or a nice dinner and a movie.”

Cas’ eyes went wide and he drained half of his drink in one gulp. “I, uh, think you both deserve the lion’s share of the praise. And shots. Thank you for handling the pretext, Sam.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No, no, no,” Cas said, standing up quickly. “I insist. I’ll be right back.”

Sam gave him a look that was part sympathy, part frustration. Dean finished his beer and tried to ignore how cold his leg felt.

****

It went on like that for a few weeks. A vengeful spirit in Boston (“Lobster rolls, Sam. Lobster rolls for days!” “Two people are _dead_ , Dean.”); demonic possession at some megachurch in Texas (“Well, points for irony,” Dean said, washing the demon blood from his hands in the baptismal fount.); a witch case that was actually just two dumbass teenagers in an escalating prank war (“Amateurs,” Dean and Sam said in unison, as they drove away. Cas squinted at them from the back and didn’t say anything.)  

Since that night at the bar in Hawkins, Sam always found some excuse to slide away unobtrusively for a few hours, to give Cas and Dean some privacy. They walked for over a mile along the Charles River at sunset, which was so fucking cliche Dean half expected a soft rock soundtrack to be playing in the background.  Dean found any reason at all to touch Cas on the arm or shoulder or hand as they talked. As Dean talked. Cas, mostly, listened, and watched Dean’s mouth, but didn’t touch him. In Texas, he threatened to drag Cas line dancing, but instead drove an hour so they could walk along a deserted strip of beach near Galveston. Neither of them talked much then. Dean wanted to grab his hand, just hold it, but didn’t.

****  
Things went to hell in Saint Louis. Again. There had to be some sort of shapeshifter curse on the place. That, or they just had spectacularly bad luck. Probably both, Dean reasoned, wiping the blood from under his nose. It was definitely broken. He stood, wobbling like a colt as his inner ear rebelled at the sudden altitude change. Sam wasn’t far behind him, though he’d clearly landed on his bad shoulder.

“Two of ‘em,” Dean said, dabbing again at his nose.

“Yeah.”

“Where the hell’s Cas?”

“Took off outside. Said he heard something.”

Cas took that moment to show up. “Speak of the…” Dean slammed on the brakes. “Cas.”

“Dean,” Cas said, stepping inside. “Do you need assistance?”

“Yeah, that fucking shifter busted my nose. Sam’s shoulder, too. You find them?”

“Them?” Cas asked, making his way slowly across the warehouse floor.

“Yeah, there’s two,” Dean said, touching his nose gingerly.

Cas stopped. “There’s...two.”

Dean frowned. “Yeah, there’s…” Oh. “Wait, we ain’t them. Come on, man.”

Cas tipped his head to the side, considering.

“Cas, come on. Seriously. I’ve got a broken nose here.”

“Hm,” Cas said, narrowing his eyes. “How do I know you’re not just saying that to get me close to you so you can kill me?”

Dean took a deep breath. “Because even if you did get within striking range, a shifter can’t take out a fucking _angel_. Not with a silver blade.”

Cas looked startled. “No, I...guess it can’t.”

“So, come on, let’s get this show on the road so we can go find them.”

Cas made no move. “But maybe you’d try to incapacitate me. Or distract me and go find my...friends.”

The way he said _friends_ fell oddly on Dean’s ear. Something prickled along his skin. “That’d be a pretty dumb move on my part. We once watched you tackle two guys out of a third storey window. Remember?”

“Yeah,” Cas said. “I remember.”

The prickling feeling increased. He cut his eyes over at Sam, who was obviously having similar feelings.

“See, the thing about shifters,” Sam said, “is that they can access the memories of whoever they shift into.”

“I know how shapeshifters work, Sam.” Curt, a little exasperated. Okay, maybe he was getting a false positive here. That sounded a lot like Cas. “Which is why I’m not convinced by you two.” He hadn’t moved any closer. Dean supposed a long-range smiting didn’t require it, but this was _Cas_. Cas was a close-range fighter, equal parts brawl and blade. Plus, he’d want to make sure. Cas would want to make absolutely sure before he... Dean took a step closer. Cas’ eyes widened. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Dean asked, taking another step.

“Stay where you are.” Cas brought a hand up warningly, a familiar gesture, and Dean blanched. Then he noticed it. He’d spent enough sleepless nights wondering how he’d missed the fact that someone was wearing his best friend’s body to make a meticulous catalogue of every movement and look.

“And the thing about Cas,” Dean said, advancing more quickly, “is that he’d keep his weapon hand low. But I’m guessing you got nothing up your sleeve except for fake-ass skin and a whole lot of ugly.”

“Ah, damn,” the shifter said with a wry look. “Angel, huh. No wonder this guy’s head is so weird. Couldn’t figure _what_ the fuck was going on in there. Whatever it is, it sure isn't fun.”

Dean ducked almost too late. He felt the whisper of air go across the top of his head. The shifter bolted away, but Sam was already on its tail.

“The thing about _Cas_ is,” the shifter’s faux-gravelly voice echoed through the warehouse. “Is that he spends all his fucking time looking at you, Dean, but he doesn’t actually see you.”

It was impossible to gauge its location.  
  
“Sammy! You got a twenty on that thing?” Dean cried, ignoring the tightness in his chest.

“He doesn’t see that you’re not even a half-step above the things that you hunt, Dean.”

“They kill because they need to live. You kill because someone told you that’s what you should do, and you haven’t had an original thought in your head since the age of four.”

Dean’s grip on the silver knife tightened. His nose throbbed. “Keep talkin’ buddy, that’s real helpful!”

“No, you see, he looks at you all day--you and your fucking psychopath of a brother--and thinks of what he can do to redeem himself to you. To be _worthy_ of you. You! You’re no hero. You’re nothing but a gin-soaked hillbilly who’s gonna die alone and hated, because hate’s all you ever put out in the world. You don’t see people, you see _tools_ to use until they break. That’s all you’ll ever see. Do you...do you even _have_ the capacity to feel love in there, Dean? Want me to describe what it’s like for you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean muttered under his breath, stalking over towards some dusty equipment of uncertain use. Blood from his nose filled his mouth, and he spat, bright red on the concrete. He tried to ignore the nauseating swell of deja vu. “Heard it all before, pal.”

Movement up and to the left. Dean went carefully, with his back along the wall. He tested his weight on one of the machines and started climbing.

“No? Never mind. _Sam_ , well, I’ve got to admit I don’t have access to your memories, but these are bad enough. You’re a pretty smug prick ninety-five percent of the time, aren’t you? That is, when you’re not drowning in completely deserved self-loathing. You lured a man to a crossroads demon? You pulled a gun on a girl in broad daylight? And that’s just in the past year! But _I’m the monster_ , right?” Odd and unsettling to hear Cas’ voice used to laugh like that.

There it was, stalking a few feet away on the gangway, above the factory floor. Dean held his breath and got ready to pounce. It turned its eyes on him--god, they were so _blue_ , he wished he had a camera, just to see them flare yellow--and snarled. At that moment, Sam grabbed it from behind, pinning its arms, and bellowed, “Dean, now!”

Dean rushed forward, but the shifter made no move to escape. Just looked down at its chest for a moment, and then back up with a sardonic grin. “Go on, Dean, finish the job.”

Dean’s blood roared in his ears. “For the record,” he said, “I don’t even _like_ gin.” He pressed the blade against that familiar white shirt and felt his own heart jerk.  
“Dean!” Sam’s voice was desperate. The shifter began to struggle against the knife point, and Dean knew he had a fraction of a second to act. “It’s _not him._  Do it!”

Blood bloomed on the tip of the knife and the thing in Sam’s grip screamed. Dean squeezed his eyes shut and pushed, until nothing but the hilt stuck out. The shifter dropped like a bag full of rocks.

Sam stepped immediately between Dean and the body, dipping his head to catch Dean’s gaze and forcing Dean’s attention on him. Sam’s eyes were edgy. “We need to go find Cas,” he said, enunciating with careful certainty. “I think this one was luring us away from the other.”

 _Fuck._ He turned around too quickly, and got hit with a wave of dizziness. Or maybe it was something else. Christ, his face hurt. He lurched down the stairs and across the warehouse, and didn’t look back. The sunlight was dazzling. “Cas!”

“I’m here, Dean,” said a quiet voice over to the side. Cas stood, gripping the sagging chain link fence with one hand. His other hand held his blade, low, almost absently. He was staring at a spot on the ground, though Dean could see nothing there. When he looked up, his eyes were glazed until he noticed the blood on Dean’s face. The blade disappeared. “You’re hurt,” he said. “Let me.”

Dean probably should have been more on edge, watching Cas walk towards him now, but he met Cas’ outstretched hand eagerly, without flinching. He felt his flesh knit itself back together. The pain eased. He could breathe again. He leaned into it, sighing. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Sam?”

“Thanks,” Sam said, pointing to his shoulder.

“Where’s the shifter?” Dean asked, glancing around.

“There,” Cas said. He pointed to the spot he’d been staring at. There was a faint black mark on the concrete, like someone had set off a firework.

“Damn,” Dean said, appreciatively. “There were two.”

“Unusual,” Cas said. His voice sounded odd. Flat.

“But not unheard of,” Sam said.

“Well, they’re two dead shifters now. So.” Dean clapped them both on the shoulder, and looked between them. “I say we celebrate. There’s a good barbecue place a couple miles south of here. Let’s go.”

“Okay,” Cas said. “I should go...take care of the other body.”

“Nah,” Sam said quickly. “I’ll do it. You guys go wait in the car.”

Cas ordered a side of fries and stared at them all night.

“Something the matter?” Dean asked, dumping them onto his own plate.

“Just...tired.”

“ _Tired_?”

“Um. Yes. That was more...involved than the other hunts we’ve done recently.”

“Mm,” Dean said, hoping his uneasiness didn’t show. He squeezed Cas’ arm. “Well, job’s done now. We’ll take a few days off, just the three of us. Get some R and R.”

“I’ve been meaning to watch _The Jinx_.” Sam looked at Cas. “I was a little, uh, occupied when it came out. We’ll marathon it.”

“Okay.”

“That’ll take, what, a day, tops, given you two’s superhuman ability to watch shit on TV.”

“We could go to Colorado,” Sam said, wiping his mouth. “I’ve always wanted to check out Red Rocks.”

“Hell yes,” Dean said, knocking the table lightly with his fist. “Legendary venue.”

“I wanna spend a day hiking,” Sam said, looking at Cas again. “Maybe you and Dean could go see a movie, grab some dinner. Make a d--day of it.”

“Yeah. That...sounds. That sounds nice, Sam.” Cas didn’t appear any happier at the prospect, but Dean tried to put it from his mind.

The day after they got back, Cas was gone.

****

Dean turned on the GPS tracker on Cas’ phone at lunchtime. The signal had stopped nine miles outside of Altoona, Iowa at around eight thirty that morning.

“That means he left sometime between three and four a.m.,” Dean said. “Why would he just...leave at four in the morning?”

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam said, carrying their plates to the sink. “It’s Cas. He wanders. It’s a thing he does sometimes.”

“When he’s on a mission? Sure. I get it, the guy’s like a submarine. He goes quiet then, boom, he’s right there.” Dean shook his head. “But he doesn’t have a mission right now. His mission is hunting. With us. And...he’s been out of whack for over a month now, Sam. You know that. Hell, he’s, he’s been out of whack for _way longer_ than that. Something’s not right here.”

Sam sat down with a sigh. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “No, you’re right. Something’s not right.” He looked into space for a few minutes. “We’ll drive to Iowa. Maybe he’s there.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know. Taking in the majestic corn fields or something.”

“Or something.”

****

There was nothing but a diner serving fried Spam and chilli dogs and a gas station at the spot where Cas’ signal terminated. A waitress with iron-gray hair had been in during the morning rush---Dean couldn’t believe a place like this could _have_ a morning rush--and now was back, pulling a double.

“Yeah,” she said, in a tired voice. “Dark hair, blue eyes. Cute, but kinda sad. Looked like an accountant, maybe.”

“Did he have a, uh, distinctive voice?” Dean asked hesitantly.

“Distinctive? Well, sounded like he’d smoked a pack a day since kindergarten, if that’s what you mean. Ordered a cup of coffee, tipped a hundred and fifty percent. He left his phone behind.”

“His phone?” Sam asked. “We’ve been calling him since this morning.” He pulled out his own phone and tapped at a few keys. The sound of Cas’ ringtone carried faintly from behind the kitchen wall. Dean’s heart slid towards the floor.

“Yeah, it’s been ringing a lot. You want it? Ask Lyle, in the back. You’ll have to sign for it, though.”

“Thanks,” Sam said. “Anything else you could tell us? Anything at all might help.”

“Well,” She paused in her mechanical wiping down of a table. “He drove a Falcon sedan, 1969. Just like my dad used to drive. Funniest thing.”

“Did he say where he was headed?” Sam asked.

“Nope. Wasn’t much of a talker. You boys want anything else?”

They didn’t.

“You think he ditched the Continental and stole someone else’s car?” Sam asked, as they walked out.

“I guess so,” Dean said, feeling seasick. “Let’s go ask at the gas station, maybe they’ll know something.”

According to the guy at the gas station, Cas looked like a city worker and drove a blue Chevy Nova. He didn’t say where he was going but he bought eighty dollars worth of gas, a key chain, and a copy of _Good Housekeeping_. Dean wanted to kick something. He bought some beef jerky instead and chewed it. Angrily.

“Something’s definitely weird here,” Sam said. He put the gas pump back in the cradle and climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“Sam, I got a real bad feeling about this.” Dean turned the key in the ignition and the Impala purred to life.

“No kidding.” He sighed.“Alright, let’s go home and regroup.”

“I dunno.”

“We have literally nothing to go on except the fact that he looks like a sad tax accountant, which we knew, and apparently drives a car that he can change at will. Not very promising.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Yeah.”

“We’ve always managed to find him before, Dean. We’ll find him again. And this time we’ll figure out what the fuck is going on.”

****

It was harder to find hunts on his own than he’d anticipated. Almost always before he’d been tracking angels or demons, who were predictable in their methods and ways, or had been aided by the Winchesters. Sam had been extremely helpful in the weeks between their return to the bunker and Castiel’s departure--he supposed it could be called a kind of apprenticeship--but it wasn’t the same thing. Most monsters were so human in their mindsets: their drives closely tied to their bodily needs, their instinct to go forth and multiply. It was difficult in some ways to differentiate between a serial killer and a skinwalker. He developed a tremendous sympathy for human law enforcement in very short order.

But Castiel knew monsters. It was hard to tell where the boundary between them and angels lay, exactly. He was not convinced that one existed at all.

And he knew how to kill. All he had to do was put those two things together, and he could maybe, in time, be the kind of hunter that Sam and Dean might view as an equal. And in that way, he could help them still, even as his love for them made him keep his distance.

It would be better for everyone, in the long run. If he ignored how much it hurt. He had plenty of time to work on that.

****

He was torn between flinging himself toward the horizon in either direction, to the extreme ends of the continent, to reduce his odds of running into the Winchesters for as long as possible, and maintaining a presence in the Midwest. It was sparsely populated in most places. They were often the only hunters in the area. If he could get there first, he could dispatch the problem before they even realized there was one. They might have to travel farther for other hunts, but Dean liked the drive and it would give them---what was the phrase Dean had used? Downtime. They needed downtime.

In the end, he opted to stay in the Midwest.

The first hunt across his radar was a haunting in Cherryburg, Illinois. It was...messier than expected. In the end, he had to render the young woman who now owned the home unconscious in order to find the object that tied the old man’s ghost to the house. He briefly debated burning the whole house down, as the ghost shrieked and tore at him. “Do you really have to do that?” Cas asked, as a gash appeared across his face, neck, torso. His coat developed a large rip. Then he realized: the ghost was trying to keep him out of the back of the house. He walked down the hall, and the pictures flew off the walls towards him, glass exploding with each step. When the bedroom door refused to open, he knew he’d found it. He wrenched it off its hinges and saw, lying in the corner, a walking stick with a silver cap. He recognized it from the newspaper clipping. The ghost wailed.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Applegate,” Cas said, as the wood began to smoke. “I hate to destroy such beautiful workmanship. But you’ll be happier, I promise. All your dogs are waiting for you.” The walking stick incinerated. The ghost crackled and disappeared.

It took an hour to sweep up all the glass. He was too tired to do anything about the door. He covered the woman with the green and white blanket from the back of the couch.

****

He stayed in Illinois, for lack of anywhere else to go, and ended up in Chicago. Something was killing everything--plants, animals, birds, fish--within a two mile radius on the shore of Lake Michigan, just outside of town. On the map it formed a perfect circle of desolation with a border so clear it might have been cut by a razor.

To his surprise, it wasn’t a demon, or the dead pulled from their graves, but rather a rusalka. Tangled in a fishing net and unable to change out of her swan form, she was slowly starving to death under a pier. Her distress bled out into the surrounding environment.

“Hey,” Cas said, gently, crouching down. The shiny black of her eyes had grown dull, and her feathers were matted and missing in places. He knew there was a problem when he withdrew his blade and she didn’t even try to bite him, just closed her eyes. “I’m gonna get you out, okay?”

One eye opened.

It took him a long time to cut her free. There were several nasty-looking gashes from where the net had dug in over the past few days. He winced in sympathy at the sight of one marring the long line of the left wing.

Grace wasn’t as effective on supernatural creatures as it was on humans, but he spent some on her anyway. If nothing else, it dulled the pain.

“Can you change now?” he asked, and got a sluggish blink for an answer. “Okay...just...wait here.” He realized he had no idea how to fish. “Um. There’s a deli about a mile away. I’ll get you, uh, a tuna sandwich?”

Something in her look brightened and she curled up on herself. Castiel saw gunmetal grey waves of power roll through her, like the waters of a deep lake, and suddenly she was a woman with dark hair and thin, pale arms. The signs of her struggle were more obvious in this form. “I’d like that.”

“Okay,” he said. He felt compelled to cover her with his coat, even though she probably felt the cold about as much as he did.

“I was trying to find my wife,” the rusalka said later, around bites of her second sandwich. “We quarreled. I think...she may be in another lake now.” As her strength returned, the damage she’d sustained faded until they looked like old scars, and the smell of death and desolation lessened. Behind them, some of the withered grass began to green.

“I’m sorry,” Cas said.

She dipped her head. “We always return to each other,” she said. “Sooner or later.”

Cas looked away, pulled his coat tighter around himself. “Good.” As he moved to stand up, she reached out.

“Thank you,” she said, and her wan face was so sincere, he felt bad for wanting to flee from it. “If you hadn’t come when you did, we wouldn’t…” She shook her head, wordlessly, and hid her face in her hands.

Cas turned away. “Go find your wife.”

*****

He bought himself a new phone. And a new coat. The woman at the store kept ducking her head and smiling at him, tucking her light brown hair behind her ear. “Black,” she said, making him turn around several times.  “Definitely.”

He sent a photo of himself to Claire. _New phone_ , he texted, along with several images of animals making amusing faces. _Please feel free to message me at will. Sam and Dean_ \--his hand hesitated-- _aren’t using their phones for a while._

 _They are OK_ he added, hastily. _Just busy_.

She replied _Nice selfie, U doof. Hope you guys have fun in Chicago! Tell them they shouldn’t work so hard._

He folded up his tan coat and put it in the trunk of his car, along with his tie. He felt less than he suspected he should have.

*****

He ran out of leads quickly, and spent three days lying on the hood of his car in a national park near the northern Nebraska border, staring at the sky. He’d found himself driving towards Kansas without realizing it. _Autopilot,_  he was pretty sure it was called. He’d swung north after the second or third  sign pointing him towards Omaha snapped him out of whatever trance he was in.

A magpie had made itself at home on his chest after the second day, and was drawing its beak through one long black-green feather when his phone beeped. The magpie hopped down, looking affronted.

“Sorry,” Cas said. “Thank you for the gum wrappers and the bead, by the way.” It squawked and went back to preening.

An unknown number. _Hey U guys know about disappearances in Mason City? Alex thinks vamp nst._

_This is Claire btw_

_Jody said I had to get a work phone_

_No selfies k_

Ignoring the almost incomprehensible last message, he typed: _Hello Claire. No I hadn’t heard about Mason City._

_Call me and we’ll discuss it._

****

Claire’s research lead Castiel to an abandoned farmstead with blacked out windows. He thought about flying in, flexing his wings and wincing as the healing wounds stretched taut. It _might_ work. His feathers had started growing back, and it was a short flight, little more than a long jump, really.

No, he couldn’t risk it. There were at least three people in there, maybe more. He needed to reliably get in and get out again, and falling on his face would help no one.

He crept slowly around the back of the house and muscled his way up to the roof. It was nothing but black tarp in some places, so he lifted an edge, on one corner, and slid in. The exposed roof beam, fifteen feet up, was precipitously narrow, but gave him an unobstructed view. He looked down and waited, and watched.  There were three people there. Two were dead, he could tell from here. The third, though. They hadn’t fed on him much yet. Cas debated freeing him now and getting him to safety, but as did so, the vampires returned in a cascade of raucous laughter. There were four. One of them swore loudly.

A slap rang out, nearly startling Castiel off his perch, and knocking one of the others to the ground.  “Don’t you blaspheme in my house, boy,” said a man with snowy white hair--clearly the head of this nest. “Look at what the Lord has given us,” he said, gesturing to their victims. More laughter. This time, Cas heard the feral edge to it. “Come on, get up, you idiot. Come on!” The three vampires closed in around the one who’d sworn as he got to his feet, snarling. There was a shudder of violent movement. They were fighting, loud and uninhibited. Cas dropped to the floor, landing in a crouch.

The white-haired vampire had the other one by the throat, lifting him into the air. And he saw Cas over his assailant’s shoulder, and tried to give warning. The other two stood at their leader’s back, snickering. “Aw, come on,” he said. “What’s that look for? You scared? Don’t worry, Jack, the Lord never gives you more than you can handle.”

“Maybe,” Cas said, holding out his hand. They turned to him in unison. “But He’s not the one that sent me.”

Their eyes seared from their skulls and they fell to the ground, charred.

He incinerated the bodies until nothing remained except a lingering charcoal scent, which would fade within a day. _Always cover your tracks as much as time allows_ , Sam had said, while showing him the database. Castiel looked on his work and saw that it was good.

“Get up,” Cas said, untying the unconscious man. He sent out a jolt of grace, replenishing the man’s blood supply. Fortunately his organs hadn’t started to fail, but he was probably going to be in shock. “Let’s get you to a hospital.”

****

He ran out of money in Wichita after exorcising a poltergeist, one of the cases he found without Claire’s support. He slept in his car. He was so tired. Thoughts of the Winchesters were heavy in his head. He suspected they might be praying. He’d muted it as much as he could---it was mostly static now---but he couldn’t turn it all the way off. He felt guilty that he even considered it. As he drifted off, he heard Dean’s voice saying his name, and each syllable sang through him, clear as a bell.

In the morning, he walked four miles to a hotel with a casino on the edge of town. He won four hundred dollars in twenty minutes. They asked him to either book a room or vacate the premises.

“I’ll, uh...yes, I’d like a room,” Cas said, collecting his money from the desk.

“It’s $110 a night,” the clerk informed him. Something about her smile unnerved him. Like she had too many teeth. He wondered if he should try holy water.

“Can I gamble each day that I stay here?”

She frowned. “Yes, sir.”

“I’ll take three nights, please.” He slid over most of the money he’d just won.

She blinked, then turned to her computer and began typing. “Certainly, Mr…”  
  
“Mister?”

“Your name, sir?”

Oh, now here was a snag he'd forgotten about. He gripped the edge of the desk. “Um. C--” _Don’t say Cas, you idiot!_ “Clarence.”   _No, not that either, damn it._

“Is that your first name or your last name, sir?”

“Uh, first name.”

“Last name?”

“I don’t…”

“Your family name, sir.” She was squinting at him suspiciously now.

“Um. Of...god.” _Wait, fuck, no. Say Winchester. No, don’t say Winchester._

Too late. “Can you spell that please?”

“Uh, O-F...G-O-D.”

“Interesting,” she said, toothily. “Norwegian?”

“Yes. Yes, it’s...Norwegian. I’m from Norway. Originally. I live in America now.”

Her face cleared. “Oh! Well, we hope you have a pleasant stay. Be sure to check out the pamphlets in the lobby.”

“Thank you.”

Cas left the hotel three days later with two thousand dollars and the many-toothed clerk’s phone number in his pocket. He knew what to do with money. The other thing baffled him.

He had a new name, which was really just his old one in a new tongue. He felt like an imposter every time he said it.

****

After almost two months on the road, he met Matt, and things became drastically different.

As far as exorcisms went, it was easy enough once he’d lured the victim in from the front yard and into a nearby house. Cas hadn’t had time to draw a devil’s trap. That had made it...interesting. A flask of salted holy water to the eyes had rendered the demon temporarily blind and won him a few crucial seconds

The demon practically leaped from its host’s body when Castiel started speaking. He hoped it didn't recognize him.

The victim was a child, barely more than ten, and the damage his small body had sustained in the course of possession was substantial. Kinder to smite him and put him out of his misery. But then he thought of Dean, and Claire, and all the thousands of people--children--he had hurt in his time, and stretched out his hand for a different purpose.

“You got that demon out of him?” the man in the salt circle asked frantically.

“Yes,” Cas said.

“Let me have a look at him,” he said, stepping forward.

“No! Not yet,” Cas said sharply. “It’s...not safe yet. Go...check the salt line by the door, make sure it can’t get back in.”

“Right,” the man said, nodding. “Salt lines, of course, I forgot.”

When he’d moved out of sight, Cas laid his hand on the boy’s head and sent out a rush of grace, a wave of it, right from the core of him. So much damage. He felt the cells realign themselves, drew the smoke and sulfur into himself and immolated it. His chest constricted sharply. He fell back, panting and sweating, just as the man reappeared.

“All clear,” the man said. “Let me have a look.”

“Go ahead,” Cas said, staggering to his feet.

“Are _you_ okay, man?”

“Yeah,” Cas said. “Just...tired.”

“Just take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Yeah, like that.”

“Demons,” the man said, kneeling and running his hands over the boy in a series of quick, professional movements. “They tend to take it out of you.”

“You’re a hunter?”

For some reason, this amused the man. “No, I’m a nurse. But, uh, the world of hunting is...I’m familiar with it, let’s say.  I’m Matt. And this is Casey, who lives at the end of the street.” Now Cas noticed that the outfit he wore was not, in fact, pyjamas, but rather pale blue hospital scrubs.

“Um, Cas.”

“Well, Cas, I think this kid’s in pretty damn good shape, considering. Pulse is a little rapid, breathing’s a little shallow. Probably in shock, but...I’d almost call it a miracle. I’ll call an ambulance. The hospital I work at is only a few miles from here. Shit, I need to call Casey’s dad, too.”

“Good idea,” Cas said, slumping down on the couch.

Matt made the call, and then got a broom and swept away the salt from the carpet and the front door.

“Okay, Cas, you look like you need a breather.”

“It’s probably best if I’m not here,” Cas said uneasily. He was a stranger here. Well, he was a stranger everywhere, but here, on this street where everyone seemed to know each other, more than usual.

Matt nodded. “Yeah. Um, tell you what, there’s a diner about a mile from here, toward the interstate. Dorothy Ann’s. Can you meet me there? I just...I feel like you and I have a lot to talk about. And you look like you could use some company.”

Cas let himself out through the back and made his way to the car as the sirens drew nearer. He sat, letting the car idle for a long moment and watched the ambulance pass. He should disappear now, while he could. He’d foolishly told Matt his name, which would be used against him, somehow.

But something made him linger. He’d spent so long disappeared, or disappearing. Claire was his only regular point of contact now, and they only interacted over the phone. For once someone had _seen_ him. Maybe not the way Dean did, or Sam, but near enough. For a brief time he felt like he existed in the world.

 _You look like you could use some company_.

He turned his car in the direction Matt had told him to take.

****

The diner was faceless and comfortable. The red vinyl covering the booth was split down the middle like a fatted calf. A faint fried smell lingered in the air, the kind of scent he’d come to find pleasing. He’d been in hundreds of diners just like this one; Sam and Dean had been in thousands. A dingy, well-lighted place, where solace came at a dollar twenty five a cup (and endless free refills, was Heaven ever so generous?). Some sort of love song played over the radio in the kitchen, above the sizzle of cooking meat, the kind of song that Dean would probably scoff at and then quietly sing all the words to.

Castiel looked across the gleaming table to the quiet, tired face dimly reflected there. He raised his head and then, after a beat, his eyes, to find himself being watched. It wasn’t so unpleasant. He allowed himself a moment to meet Matt’s steady gaze.

“Not a big talker, huh?” Matt said after a minute. He was smiling now.

“Compared to who?”

Matt laughed at that, a warm, dark sound, and Cas found himself smiling, too.

“Sorry,” Matt said, after a moment. “Long day. I’m a little punch-drunk.” He sat forward, leaning on his forearms. “You’re not like most hunters I’ve met.”

“So I’ve been told,” Cas said, looking down at his coffee. “Still I...try to do the best I can with--uh, my limited resources.”

“I’m sure you’re good at it,” Matt said. “You saved that kid. I mean, like, _really saved_ him. I saw my fair share of ex-hosts back during...well, you know. _More_ than my fair share, actually. And none of them were in as good a shape as that kid was. Heck, most, uh...most end up not being able to cope. They just never--never come back from it, not really. Even if they survive the possession and expulsion, and most don’t, they...tend to die anyway.”

His eyes--as warm and dark as his laugh--suddenly seemed dim and closed-off, like a shroud thrown over a bright light. Cas found he wanted to reignite it somehow. “Sorry,” Matt said again, shaking his head. “This isn’t appropriate dinner conversation.”

“Well, it’s seventeen minutes past two in the morning,” Cas said, belatedly realizing he should have checked his phone for the time first. “So technically it’s breakfast conversation. And believe me, I’ve heard worse.”

“Yeah, I bet.” His face took on its normal appearance of soft good humor. It was a very nice face, Cas decided. Looking at it was enjoyable, and he found he wanted to continue doing it.

“I’m glad the boy will be alright,” Cas said. “And I’ve heard that children are, uh, resilient, so perhaps he’ll fare better than the others you’ve known.”

Matt nodded thoughtfully. “Not even a broken bone. If I hadn’t seen those black eyes for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Cas shifted in his seat, feeling his grace pulse threadily at the memory of healing the massive internal damage the boy had suffered. He felt another, telltale starburst of unbroken grace-- _Lucifer’s grace_ \--pulse in response, a cool, short shock, like an ice pack on an inflamed injury. It soothed the ache and he resented it. He tamped it down sharply. He’d have to sleep for most of the day tomorrow to recover, but it was better than the alternative.

“You okay there?”

“Oh,” Cas said, startled. “Um, yes, sorry I have a painful---” _Don’t say painful burning sensation!_

“Pulled muscle. In my back,” he finished, gripping the coffee cup so hard he heard it crack ever-so-slightly.

“Hazard of the job, I guess,” Matt said, with sympathy and...something else lacing his voice. “Hey, you want some of these fries? You’ve gotta be starving.”

Cas wanted to refuse; the prospect of eating anything, even a cheeseburger, even a chocolate bar, made him focus on the physical sensations of his body, and the stuttering of the grace that kept it running, like an engine with a faulty fuel pump. (For some reason, this metaphor was delivered in Dean’s voice. He tried not to dwell on it.) But Matt was tilting the plate towards him with a hopeful, shy expression, and he couldn’t find a reason to say no.

“Thanks,” he said, taking two. _Salt._ Ion channels sparking to life. Not so bad. Not sugar, but--not so bad. He withdrew a little bit into his body. Tried to appreciate it for what it was, not for its constituent parts. _This is what you have now, you might as well enjoy it._

“That’s a pretty serious contemplation of French fries,”  Matt said, watching him. “You must be a connoisseur.”

“Hardly,” Cas said, swallowing. “I just have a lot of...feelings about diner food.”

“Hmm,” Matt said, sitting back, and Cas suddenly felt as though he was being appraised for something. He hoped he possessed whatever it was. “You want something else? I’ll get you anything you want.”

He gave Cas another smile, this one tuned differently to all the others. It reminded him of something, but the thing remained just at the edge of his vision, like the last fragments of the dreams he used to have.

“Just coffee’s fine,” Cas said, taking another sip and letting the matter dissolve. “Thank you, though. That’s...very kind of you,” he added, looking up over the rim of the mug. Matt was still looking at him. It felt appropriate to smile back, so he did.

“Don’t mention it,” Matt said, picking at the remaining fries. It was a stalling tactic, one Dean, and, less frequently, Sam used when they wanted to put off something unpleasant. Or were building up to asking something unpleasant. Something potentially involving a mercy killing. He quietly put the coffee mug back on the table before he shattered it by accident.

“So…Cas...”

He laid his hands carefully on the tabletop. “Yes?”

Matt examined another fry before taking a bite of it. “Are you...heading out now that the hunt’s done?”

 _Still stalling. A feint, maybe?_ “I...had planned on it, yes.”

Matt’s face fell. “Someone to get back to, huh.”

“No, I…” Cas frowned, trying to follow the thread of this conversation, unsure if it was leading towards safety or a pair of sharp horns and flashing eyes. Theseus had succeeded, sure, but he’d walked with a limp for the rest of his life. “There’s no one.” He didn’t know which option was worse: that he might be right, or that he might not be. Either way, he felt the need to avoid Matt’s gaze. The stone words settled heavily on his chest, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

“No one at all?” Matt asked, sounding almost...concerned. No. Not concerned. Something else. “That sounds kinda excruciatingly lonely.”

 _Pity_? _Anything but that._ He met Matt’s eyes again. “I have a...girl that I...care a great deal for. Well, she’s an adult now but, in my mind, she is still a child. I--I became involved in her family life when she was still very young, and so I feel a responsibility for her welfare.”

Matt looked thoughtful, drained the last dregs of the water from his glass. He rattled the ice as he asked: “Daughter-by-proxy, huh?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I was--very close to her father for a time, before he died.”

“Ah,” Matt said, nodding solemnly. “I’m very sorry to hear that. I know what it’s like to lose people who are important to you. Was he a hunter, too?”

“Radio ad salesman. Though he was...more embroiled in the Apocalypse than anyone with that job title should have been.”

Matt grimaced. “Yeah, those were, uh, strange times.” He looked thoughtful, then grinned a gallows grin. “Though I guess there’s probably never been any other kind.”

“No,” Cas agreed. “There really hasn’t.”

Matt’s smile lost its sharp edges. He rested his chin on his palm, and looked at Cas steadily. The look sent something hot creeping up the back of Cas’ neck, and he tried to pin down where he’d seen it before.

“I bet it’s hard to put down roots as a hunter. I’ve met, uh, a few in my time, you could say. They were all pretty... _driven_. I guess hunting demons doesn’t exactly suit a homebody. Not much time for the softer pursuits.”

Cas shrugged. “That’s not true. I’ve met exceptional hunters who were very much---homebodies.”

“Yeah?”

“One of them once explained to me, with the same fervor he used to explain lore, the importance of seasoning a cast iron pan to make cornbread.”

Matt let out a laugh, like a flock of birds startled from a tree. “Good cornbread is essential to life,” he said, his eyes shining with mirth.

“The pan was an heirloom. Apparently, this was key to his success.”

Matt’s laugh continued to ripple through him for a moment. Then he caught his breath and said: “No domesticity for you, though, huh.” Dean--and sometimes Sam--gave him that look. Cas had the feeling that he was being read, but he wasn’t sure in what language. “I can tell. _You’re_ a _nomad_.” The word had a teasing curl to it.

“That sounds nicer than _itinerant_ ,” Cas said, trying to keep his voice light and almost succeeding. “And yeah, I guess most hunters are, by necessity. Some of the best ones I’ve ever known were...nomads.” He thought of the thousands of anonymous motel rooms and chainlink lots that made up the bulk of Sam and Dean’s childhood, adolescence, adulthood; the jagged neon sheen that colored their lives; all swaddled in low thread-count sheets as the clatter of the ice machine lulled them to sleep. Few of days and full of fast food and trouble. Then, for some reason his thoughts turned to Bobby, of waking up on the floor of his front room covered in a satin-edged blanket with a tumbler of whiskey by his elbow (“Boy, you sure got your bell rung. Go lay down ‘til it gets unrung.”). He thought of Dean in the bunker kitchen, of the strong turn of his calves beneath his bathrobe as he moved, making waffles or fried chicken or, sometimes, both. The thought threatened to derail him, and he mentally shook himself. “I--I tried to, uh, put down roots before but it didn’t…” He cleared his throat, looked away. “I suppose it’s just my fate.”

Matt made an incredulous noise. “Your _fate_? To, what, wander the earth alone, forever, like Cain?”

Cas started. He almost mentioned that no, in fact, Cain became the very definition of a homebody, with a streak of domesticity born of stone-age necessity that not even Hell could rid him of. Cain had raised cities, sons, daughters, in his desperate longing to put down roots. Too bad the soil was poison down to the bedrock  “Something like that,” he said instead. “Some of us are created for solitude.” _Literally, in my case_ , Cas thought, feeling his name--one of many, the most apt of them, and the least wanted--echo through him. He was too big for his body, this table, this diner, this town; nothing fit him, everything was a cage, he was one hundred and twelve selves in an infinite splitting, forever falling away and never able to go anywhere.

“Man, that sucks,” Matt said earnestly, interrupting his spiral. “And,” he continued, reaching out to tap lightly against one of Cas’ knuckles. “I don’t think you really believe that.” The pad of his finger remained resting on Cas’ skin.

“No?” Cas asked, looking down at where Matt’s hand settled gracefully on the table. He was himself again. Whoever that was.

“No,” Matt said. He covered Cas’ hand with his own. “I think that’s what you tell yourself and, seriously, I understand the need to tell that story. I told it to myself for years. So, no judgement here. But you know how you asked me earlier why I didn’t become a hunter?”

Cas nodded, felt himself sitting forward in his seat. “Because after the dark things get ripped out of the world,” Matt said, “it leaves a hole, and someone’s got to be there to close it up. I couldn’t…” Matt shook his head, and his hand tightened around Castiel’s. It seemed natural to rest the other hand over those white knuckles, to offer what comfort he could. Instinctively, slipstream of grace, a tiny cirrus barely more than a nerve-ending wide, moved between them. Matt blinked, a rapid flutter of pale lashes, and his face relaxed a fraction, but he gave no indication that he’d felt anything strange. Cas nearly sighed with relief.

“You wanted to help people,” Cas said quietly.

“Yeah,” Matt said, nodding. He smiled down at their hands. “And, having seen...what comes after, I knew that there had to be another way I could help people without... doing that.”

“Hence the nursing.”

“Hence the nursing,” Matt agreed warmly. Everything about him was warm, Cas thought for the second or third or tenth time. Cas was used to extremes: the white hot pulse of Heavenly fire that permeated (almost) every mote of him, the earthly fire of Dean’s anger and Dean’s righteousness and Dean’s...He shook his head. The ice that crept into the cracks when the fire died, widening them. The person in front of him was gentle rather than incendiary, like the very first day of spring, the promise of a thaw.

“Someone’s gotta be there when the world doesn’t end,” Matt was saying, and the words settled on Cas like a blanket. He’d removed his hand, but he hadn’t moved it very far. All it would take was the movement of a few inches, an inconsequential gesture, to take it again. Cas found he wanted to.

“That’s...that’s very admirable,” Cas said, swallowing to try and dislodge the strange feeling in his throat. Something was emerging in this conversation, and he could _almost_ see the shape of it from the corner of his eye. His heart beat a little harder, a one-two punch of hope and wariness knocking against his ribs.

Matt shrugged. He looked steady. “That’s why _you_ pulled me up short. Exorcising that kid was one thing--an impressive thing, because what I tried sure as hell didn’t work. But I’ve never seen a hunter act so...so...compassionately. I said to myself ‘Matt, this is a guy who _cares_ ’.”

Cas tried to think of something to say to that but found he couldn’t. He also discovered that that the heat at the back of his neck had returned, and spread now to his face.

 _I’m blushing,_ he thought, horrified. _I’m blushing and I don’t even have a drop of alcohol in my system_. He raised the mug to this mouth again, only to belatedly realize that he’d already finished all the coffee in it. He shifted again, and Matt noticed.

“Back’s still bothering you, huh,” he said, and somehow his hand had returned, farther up, so that his thumb brushed the side of Cas’ wrist. Matt definitely wasn’t an angel of any kind, so the little jolt he felt in its wake made no sense. “I could...uh, work on it for you, if you want? Is your motel far? Or...we could head back to my apartment.”  Matt was looking at him shyly, through his lashes, and suddenly that shapeless _something_ had a shape.

“I’m sorry?” Cas asked, before he could stop himself. Because that couldn’t be. He had to be wrong. There was no other possible explanation. His failure in this area was one of the only consistent things in his life.

Matt seemed to retreat farther than physics would allow at the sound of Cas’ question. “Uh, you...I thought,” He frowned, clearly at a loss for words. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, a shaky echo of Cas. “I...misread.”

“You were flirting with me,” Cas said, the slow realization revealing itself through his smile. “‘Work on your back’. That--was a euphemism.”

Matt didn’t notice him smiling.“Yeah, I--I’m sorry,” he said again. His eyes darted frantically around the diner. “I’ll get the check. If you could just--just drop me off at my car, I’d appreciate…” He made to stand, knocking against the edge of the table and making the cutlery jump. Cas grabbed his hand with a frisson of panic and...something else...shooting up his spine.

“Wait,” Cas said. “I wasn’t turning you down, I was clarifying.”

That brought Matt up short. He sat back down. “What? Really?”

“Yeah,” Cas said, still clutching his hand. He let go. “I would.” He swallowed, and cringed inwardly at how loud it was. _What’s the right thing to say here? Fuck. Why can’t humans ever just_ **_say_ ** _what they’re thinking? Why always with the subterfuge? Is it...is it...are there points? Is it a points system? Some kind of--code? Dean or Sam would know._ That’s what would have tipped him off about April, in retrospect: the physical directness, the lack of coyness in pursuit of her mission, angelic traits both. He realized that Matt was still watching him with eyes as wide and dark as the river outside. “Be amenable,” Cas finished awkwardly.

“Amenable,” Matt repeated, staring at Cas. Each syllable had deliberate weight, like he was saying an incantation.

Their waitress appeared--the only one, at this late hour--with her heavy eyes and brightly-painted mouth. “You guys want anything else?”

“Just the check,” Matt said, letting his eyes cut over to her and giving her a dazzling smile. “Tell Antoine he still makes the best club sandwich in the county.”

“Will do,” she said, smiling gamely as she tore off a strip of grey paper and handed it to Matt. Her shoes squeaked as she walked away.

“I can…” Cas began, reaching for his wallet.

Matt made an expansively dismissive gesture. “I don’t think so. The hero of the day gets free coffee,” he said, meeting Cas’ eyes again. “And many other perks besides.”

“That,” Cas said, feeling the blush return but not minding so much, “was also a euphemism.”

Matt threw back his head and laughed, and Cas felt an odd sense of triumph. Emboldened, he touched Matt’s arm as they walked into the early morning.

****

 _Well,_ Cas thought, staring at the rough texture of Matt’s ceiling, _that was educational._ He’d forgotten how many fluids were involved. And then, additional fluids. And a long period of--he wasn’t exactly sure what to call it--preparatory actions. They were unnecessary, given the level of control Castiel had over this body, but he had enough wherewithal to know he shouldn’t mention that.

Besides, it was...nice. Strange. But enjoyable. Ultimately very enjoyable. Matt had kissed like he’d talked--warm and good humored. He found himself comparing it to the kisses he’d had with April (or rather, the thing that looked like April), and had to turn away from the thought. Did every human being have their own way of kissing? The mechanics of it were the same from person to person, of course. The same as sex. That’s why he’d always found observation so incredibly dull: such a limited repertoire, over and over again, for centuries. But it was the _intent_ that gave it nuance, he was beginning to understand.  Without realizing it, his thoughts drifted to Dean and lingered there, something soft and golden and slightly hazy. He almost felt skin under his fingertips.

His thoughts lurched back into the room. Matt was dozing next to him. At Cas’ restless movement, he opened his eyes and smiled. Cas took a deep breath and smiled back. He very nearly meant it.

****

He departed at noon, with Matt in a deep, dreamless sleep of pleasant exhaustion. Cas left a glass of water on his bedside table, along with a short note: an anti-possession sigil and instructions that he get it tattooed on his body somewhere. Below it: _Thank you. You were right about the company. -C_

Blue Earth, Minnesota. Just the name of the town was enough to send a cascade of conflicting emotions through Castiel. Something in him had begun to unravel. Though Cas suspected that particular part of him had begun unraveling a long time ago.

“They locked us in a basement,” Matt had said, staring straight overhead. If he noticed the tears tracking slowly from his eyes, he did nothing about them. “They were going to burn us all.”

Cas gripped his hand.

Matt turned to look at him. “Do you believe in angels?”

Cas almost laughed. Instead, he cleared his throat and nodded. “Of course.”

“Apparently, we had one in town. I never saw it. I saw one of the hunters it was with but not… Anyway, uh, yeah. Long story short, my sister and I lived, I got the hell out of there. I was only sixteen but...I couldn’t stay. Went off the rails for a few years. Then I thought, Matt, what the fuck are you doing? Your life was spared and you’re going to spend it pickling your liver and sending all your money up your nose.”

Cas felt himself lean over, felt himself kiss the side of Matt’s face, felt himself settle on top of him. It felt like he was watching himself from a great height.

****

He never used his real name again.

It took him a week of failed attempts to forge a driver’s license. It had been years since he’d made his own identification to procure that job in Idaho. That license wasn’t even very _good_ ; he suspected that they’d just really needed the help. The store had always been chronically understaffed, and there had always been a Help Wanted sign in the window. It meant that he was able to do a lot of overtime, though, which earned him the extra money to buy his car. More importantly, it filled up his hours so that he didn’t have to think, just do.

Ever since his encounter with the ghost of Seth Applegate, he’d rediscovered the usefulness of firearms, and carried a sawed-off shotgun in his coat whenever there was a suggestion of ghost or demon. He could make salt shells in his sleep, as the saying went. In fact, he found it therapeutic, the monotony of it, the combination of skill and force. He’d bought a press and a thousand shells. After a few days’ practice, he could fieldstrip a gun, exactly as Dean had showed him, down to the most minute movement, in only a few seconds. It was the _paperwork_ he struggled with. He could only hope that most people wouldn’t look too closely. Fortunately, most didn’t. And those that did developed sudden fainting spells.

His education continued. He helped a woman with a flat tire on his way to kill a rugaru in Rockford. Two days later, he ran into her again, behind the desk of the motel he decided to stop at when the prospect of driving any more proved overwhelming. She gave him a discount, and knocked on his door when her shift finished. Her skin was dark, and soft under his hands. The human tongue might be put to all manner of uses that didn’t involve forming words, and he learned the finer points of several of them that evening.

“You’re a real catch, you know that, Clarence?” she’d said, zipping her dress back up and looking for her shoes. “You sure you can’t stick around for a few more days?”

“No,” Cas said, handing her a bright blue high heel. “I’m afraid not.”

“More business trips, huh?” She steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder as she stepped into her shoes. They were almost eye-to-eye now.

“No rest for the wicked.”  He felt soft-edged, loose-limbed, love-drunk. Embodied. Nothing in him hurt. He might be getting a kind of taste for it, he decided.

“Well,” she said, patting his face and then kissing him again. Her kisses were more playful than Matt’s. Her hands were much more delicate than Dean’s. Cas mentally slapped the thought away. “If you’re ever in this area again, you know where to find me.”

That night, he felt a tug at the center of him. The beginning of a some kind of summoning. No, a location spell, maybe. It tasted like blood and myrrh and earth. He couldn’t tell if it was human or angel or otherwise. He’d lost track of all the things that hunted him. Someday, one of them would catch up to him. But not today. He cut open his arm and used the motel sink as his incantation bowl. He spat a few words, ugly and hasty, but effective. _There is nothing here_ , Cas sent out. _Turn your attention elsewhere._ He met his own eye in the mirror. _I’m nothing_.

The spell swept over him and dissolved into dust. He pulled the plug and washed his blood from the sink.

****

“I can’t believe we had _another_ case come up with nothing,” Dean grumbled, slumping down at the war room table. “First that vamp nest, then the werewolf in Bismarck. Now this fucking rugaru thing in Rockford. What the hell’s going _on_?”

“I dunno,” Sam said, staring at his laptop screen like he wanted to set it on fire with his mind. “The intel seemed solid. I’ve called around, but no one’s picked them up. No one in our network, anyway. At least we got that, uh, case in Minneapolis, right?”

Dean groaned. “Yeah, I guess there’s that.” He dug the heel of his hand into his eye,  until he saw starbursts. “I’m gonna climb out of my fricking skin here in a few days, Sam. Not a single good lead on Cas, and only two hunts in the last month? There some kind of Monsters Union that I don’t know about? They all go on strike?”

Sam laughed, kind of. “Well, I mean...we have, uh, help now. With Cas, I mean. That’s, that’s something, right?”

“Yeah, awesome,” Dean said bitterly. “We put our faith in Endora.”

“It’s _something_ , Dean.”

“Yeah,” Dean sighed. “If he hasn’t warded himself against witches, too.”

****

He warded himself after he felt the spell seek him a second time. He had to improvise. A glass vial and a $5 chain from Claire's Accessories at a half-dead shopping mall (he smiled at the name, and showed the very confused woman behind the counter Claire’s latest...selfie, which seemed to make her less confused.) would have to serve until he could decide whether an additional tattoo was necessary. Not perfect, since he didn’t know what he was dealing with: they’d still know where he was within a fifty mile radius. But good enough.

He didn't feel any more summonings after that, but kept the warding around his neck, just in case.

A siren drew him to Indiana. This one he found without Claire’s help.  He had to remember that she had a life of her own, and not to become too reliant.Thoughts of the Winchesters had troubled Cas all through the case, insistent, like the dull throb of a healing sprain. Dean’s name was on the tip of his tongue, and Sam’s voice on the edge of his hearing almost non-stop, and he couldn’t quite get it to mute. He wondered if he was losing his grip on his sanity again, and hoped it would hold until he got this job done.  He stalked a siren for two days. When he cornered it, he almost wished he could vacate his body, so he could kill it with his true voice. Dean would have appreciated the irony, he thought. Sam, too.

That night he went home with a woman with clever eyes like Meg’s and a mouth that reminded him of Dean’s. Too much, both of them. He tried to turn that thought aside as he pushed her against the wall, a little too hard. He apologized, made to step away, but she grabbed him by the wrist with a grin and whispered “ _Do that again_ ”.

At one point, she told him to bite her, and it was, he discovered, not a derogatory interjection in this instance.

When they’d finished, she seemed almost giddy, which gave Cas a rush of pleasure and pride and...confusion. She laughed at his concern over the marks he’d left. “Don’t worry so much, handsome. That’s what God made clothes for. Get some sleep.” She grinned at him again. “Maybe we’ll do round two in the morning.”

Well, he’d witnessed stranger things in his time, but observation was a poor substitute for experience. Not for the first time, he reminded himself that parsing the subtleties of human sexual response was probably an exercise in futility. Maybe someone else would know. Maybe...

When she’d drifted off, he healed her, and watched the shadow of the tree outside move across the ceiling, and ached, and did not sleep.

****

Dean jolted awake at the sound of Sam’s knock. “What?” he muttered as he flopped back into his pillow.

“Dean, it’s Claire.”

“Mm.”

“ _Dean_.”

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Sam said, and the look on his face drove the sleep from Dean’s body. “She’s--she’s heard from Cas.”

 _“What_?”

****

“Son of a bitch.”

“I’m sorry!” Claire wailed over the phone. “I really thought…”

“It’s not your fault, Claire,” Sam said firmly, staring at Dean. He tipped his head towards the phone with an expectant look: _Back me up here, Dean._

“No, it isn’t,” Dean said, forcing himself to unclench his fists. “Not your fault he’s a cagey, elusive little..”

“Dean.” The warning in Sam’s voice was practically engraved.

“Angel,” Dean finished.

“Alright, so, start at the beginning, Claire.” Sam already had his laptop open and on. “Give us all the details.”

“I don’t know,” Claire said. She sounded very young, and the ferocity of Dean’s anger began to die. It was the same tone of voice Ben had used when he and Lisa used to argue, at the end. “I mean, he ran for a reason and…”

“Claire,” Dean said, sitting down heavily. “Cas ran because something’s the matter, and we have no idea what it is, or what it’s doing to him, or if he’s in trouble or...or anything.”

“We just want to help,” Sam said, watching Dean’s face with an unreadable expression. “We just don’t want him to deal with whatever it is alone, if he doesn’t have to. You get why that’s important, right?”

“Right,” Claire said, eventually. “Okay. Let me tell you everything.”

****

Three hours later, they had the picture, more or less, and Claire had been called away to dinner. She was much calmer when she got off the phone.

“I still want your help with my application, Sam.”

“Don’t worry, Dean and I’ll come up and we can do it together.”

“And Castiel.”

“And Castiel,” Sam said. A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he said: “Definitely” and it sounded like he meant it.

“Cool.”

“So that’s where all our cases went,” Dean said after a few moments. “He was doing them for us.”

“Looks that way,” Sam agreed. He rubbed his nose. “I’m gonna...check out a couple of motels in the areas where we had our hunts dry up a while back. The ones before she got involved.”

“Sounds good,” Dean said. He felt alight with purpose and movement in a way he’d almost forgotten he could feel. “I’m...gonna go build myself a detonator.”  
****

Those early hunts, before Claire began providing intel, seemed promising. And a few non-starters that Sam had revisited over the course of the night. A die off at Lake Michigan that came from nowhere and just as suddenly went away.

“I think I found him,” Sam said, putting down his coffee cup. “That poltergeist case in Wichita. Checked all the cheap and mid-rate motels. One of them’s got a casino, only three miles from the haunted house.”

“Yeah?” Dean leaned over Sam’s shoulder to look.

“Yeah, and get this, I did a little digging into their...uh, databases.”

“That’s some Angelina Jolie level work there, Sam.” At Sam’s nonplussed face, he added. “ _Hackers_? Come on.”

Sam shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s a script Charlie invented.”

“Ah.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Anyway, look at this.” He turned the computer around. “Look at the name of the person that checked into room 303 the day after the case.”

“Cla...oh, my god.”

“Literally.”

“Ofgod? _Of God_? What is this crap... _The Handmaid’s Tale_? Oh, _what,_  Sam? I read.”

Sam put up his hands. “Woah, hey, I know that. Uh. So…”

“So we go find this idiot and we make him talk to us.”

“What if he doesn’t want to talk?”

The idea ignited echoes of the Mark in Dean’s chest. He blinked the bloodfilm away from his eyes. Steadied himself. “Then he doesn’t. But at least we tried. At least we didn’t…”

Sam let out a breath. “What about that possible siren case in Gary?”

“Screw it. Outsource. Call Eileen, have her look into it. We are _finding him_.”

“Okay. Okay, Dean, let’s go find him.”

****

Cas arrived in town by late afternoon, in a rush of aspen gold. He felt restless. Thoughts of the Winchesters had been circling his head all day, worse, almost, than the night he’d killed that siren. It seemed more _present_ somehow. It reminded him of the time he’d had to get a haircut. No one had told a haircut required a change of clothes, and he spent his shift at the Gas n Sip uncomfortable and itching.

At several points, as he walked from the trailhead towards the mine where Claire suspected the wendigo lived, he realized he was clenching his hand around the phone in his pocket. He didn’t have Sam or Dean’s number any more, but that hardly mattered. They were seared into his memory the way the names of the prophets were. Both sets of knowledge were equally useless now.

He had exactly three contacts in his phone, and two of them were Claire. The phone she used in civilian life, he sent self portraits to-- _Selfies_ , he reminded himself brusquely, _They’re called selfies_ \--as well as pictures of things that reminded him of her: sunrise over a golf course in Illinois (it apparently had a “wicked dogleg”, but Cas could see no signs of Hellhound activity); a blueberry bee resting on one of his knuckles; a curved silver scimitar that had been used to cleave the heads of over forty lamia. The museum labelled it as a ceremonial sword of unknown purpose. He didn’t bother to correct them. Their messages were filled with glyphs--- _emoticons, no, emojis_ \--and strange abbreviations that he’d never completely figured out.

Her work phone was just that, work only. He was careful that their conversations never crossed over. She sent him coordinates, news articles, photos of the boards she had in her room. The bedroom walls had posters of movies Cas had seen secondhand, the closet had a meticulous filing system and maps of suspicious deaths. She had, as Cas had told her once, a genius for pattern recognition and noticing details. She’d told him to shut up. Then she sent him a photo of that toy cat he’d given her, with a drawing of a heart above it. He wondered what it all meant. It was probably the kind of thing Sam would explain and Dean would tell him not to bother figuring out.

He shoved thoughts of the Winchesters aside. There was a wendigo in these woods, something he could actually do something about. The details Claire provided were sketchier than normal, but he trusted her instincts, and didn’t bother to wait for a more detailed report, which could take, according to Claire “a week or two”. Sam and Dean would definitely be on the trail by then, and this was such a simple hunt for him. Strike now and leave. They’d never even know. Maybe they’d be able to go to one of the baseball games Sam had mentioned. A road trip. Dean would like that. He felt a momentary pang of longing as he imagined the easy smile on Dean’s face, looking across to the passenger’s seat, and turning the dial on the radio up. He imagined it was himself taking in that look, so real it was almost painful, like he was _there_.

He made a frustrated sound, then squared his shoulders and raised his chin. He walked deeper into the woods.

****

The first sweeping bellow of holy fire always pierced him. That moment of pure blank terror, more animal and raw than most angels would ever admit. A fraction of a second, at most, but every time it felt like forever. Then Castiel marshaled his resolve, felt the panic flee. In the distance he heard a second telltale roar. The panic returned for a moment before he willed it away again. Panic was replaced by anger, at himself for getting tricked, and at his unknown captors. _No one’s putting me in my grave but me, you bastards_ , he thought, letting his eyes scan the circle of flames. His blade settled itself into his palm.

 _Well,_ he amended, watching two familiar figures emerge from the dancing shadows, _Maybe there are two exceptions to that rule_. There usually were.

The panic roared, baying for his blood. Quieter, underneath it, he thought: _Claire_. _They got to me through her. I was so stupid._ He couldn’t read the look on either Sam’s or Dean’s faces, except that they looked...distraught, that was the word. He’d seen similar looks before, from an almost identical position, and he knew, somehow, that this time it was over. All he could do was apologize and wait.

“Cas, calm down.” Apparently Sam had been speaking to him for the last few minutes. He snapped his attention back to them. He’d been pacing. He forced himself to be still.

“That’s it. Just…be calm, okay?”

“You dropped your blade, man,” Dean said. His voice sounded so strange to Cas’ ears. It was undercut with emotions that Cas didn’t recognize. Had it really been that long since he’d heard it?  Cas looked down and saw that Dean was right, but he made no effort to retrieve it. Dean was right up against the hem of the fire, so close Cas worried about him singing his clothes. Sam’s hand was on his elbow, like he was holding Dean back. If Dean wanted to fight him here, then he was going to be disappointed. He’d topple backwards into the flames before he’d raise his hand against Dean. “Cas? Cas, hey. Hey, come on. Stay with us.”

Cas could think of nothing to say except: “I’m sorry”, so he said it now.

That just made the looks on their faces worse.

“Yeah, we know,” Sam said. His voice snagged like a rusted hook. “We get that.” Cas saw the way Sam’s jaw tightened, the way his brows drew together as he cast a helpless look at Dean, who he was still gripping by the elbow. “Cas, this--I know this looks bad, but Dean and I…”

“We just wanna talk, okay?” Dean said, sagging away from the ring of fire as though those words took most of his strength.

“Talk?” He had moved himself to the very center of the ring, away from Dean’s eyes, and the dangerous things they were saying.

“Yeah, we…” Dean started, then shook his head, scrubbing his hand down his face.

“We didn’t know if you can fly now or not, since you got your grace back,” Sam said, when it became clear that Dean wasn’t going to continue. His voice seemed much calmer now, even and reasonable. “And we needed to make sure you heard what we had to say. We’re not gonna keep you in here, okay? We promise.”

Cas nearly said that he didn’t much care whether they left him here or not, that he already knew what they were planning to tell him, and he didn’t want to hear it. Instead he said, “I don’t know if I can. I haven’t tried. The damage was substantial.”

Sam’s look became sympathetic, and Cas turned away from it. “That sucks,” Sam said. No one spoke for a long, taut minute. “Look, I don’t know what happened during that shifter hunt back in Saint Louis. I don’t know what form it took. But hear me: whatever it said to you, it was _lying_ , okay? Whatever...whatever it told you, it was just messing with your head. It was just trying to, I dunno, throw you off your game so it could escape. It was using your fears against you.”

Cas’ throat didn’t seem to be working properly. No good trusting a two-inch array of _cartilage_ to convey your thoughts by vibrating air through an _opening in your face_ ; the human body was so ridiculously over engineered and yet so constantly fallible and…

“Castiel!” That was Dean, and it was his angry voice. No. Not angry. Some other word. He was up against the flames again. “Are you listening?”

“It…” Cas cleared his throat. “The shifter. It changed into _you_ , not me.  How’d it...it changed into you, it must have had access to what you were thinking, your memories. Not mine.” He didn’t add _Because everything it said sounded true coming in your voice_. But judging by the way that Dean’s eyes fell away from him, he didn’t have to.

“They were mated,” Sam said.

“What?”

“Rare,” Sam said. “But it happens, once in awhile. We looked into it, after you...After.”

“When they’re mated, they, they have a kind of shared telepathy. Shifter radio,” Dean added. The stricken look was slowly easing from his face as he slipped back into hunter mode. Safe ground.

“I...don’t understand.”

“Yours knew what Dean was thinking because, yeah, it had access to Dean’s thoughts, but it also had access to _yours,_ because its mate did. And vice verse. Although,” Sam said, frowning, “it also said your thoughts were...weird.”

 _Very likely_ , Cas thought. “Weird?”

“Dunno,” Sam said. “I guess maybe like that psychic said. Colors.”

Dean was obviously confused by the turn in their conversation, and waved his hand to silence them. “Point is, it was all bullshit. Okay? It knew just what to say to get your back up, same as it did me and Sam.”

“What did it say to Sam?”

Sam looked uncomfortable. “Bunch of bullshit, like Dean said.”

That sounded very much like a lie. But Cas held his tongue. This wasn’t following the script he was expecting at all, like they’d ripped it up and rewritten it when he wasn’t looking.

“If you bolted because you thought…” Dean began, then stopped. “Look, man, I don’t know why you went AWOL, but if it’s because that _thing_ told you that we didn’t want you around, trust me when I say that’s the _opposite_ of true. Okay?”

“You don’t…” Cas started, then ground to a halt. They didn’t know. Somehow, despite the creature having access to his thoughts, they still didn’t know.He hadn’t asked what form it had taken, after they’d gotten separated. He’d just assumed it was one of them, that it would attempt to turn Dean and Sam on each other. It hadn’t even occurred to him that it might have assumed _his_ form. What could it possibly have hoped to have achieved by using that tactic? He wondered which one of them stuck the knife in. If they hesitated at all.

He himself did not. He’d laid waste to thousands of infinitely better-rendered counterfeits. Cas took the blows it delivered as it advanced, one after another after another; partly this was because they were things he deserved to hear. Partly it was strategy. Finally it had gotten close, close enough to smile into Cas’ face and croon _I loved you, once_ (That one, he admitted, had hurt. He’d felt a phantom needle prick behind his eye.). Then his trembling had ceased and he’d grabbed the thing by its throat. He lit it up from the inside and watched the inhuman flare of its irises. Then he burnt it to a cinder. He left nothing but a jagged portion of rib, yellowish and unmarked by a single glyph. Then he burned that, too.

He ran his thumb under the orbit of his eye. It was free of blood.

“Cas? We don’t what?” Sam asked. There was an edge of fear in his voice, and Cas had no idea why. He was incapable of posing a threat to them in here. _You don’t have to be afraid_ , he almost said, on instinct.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Like hell,” Dean growled.

 _Very much so_ , Cas thought. “What are you two hoping to achieve here, exactly?”

They shared another look Castiel couldn’t read. Angel radio might have been more powerful but it was hardly as efficient.

“Uh,” Sam said. “We...just want to help you, Cas.”

“Why?” Cas asked, before he could stop himself.

“ _Why_?” Dean repeated. “Because something’s the matter! You were acting weird for weeks and then you left in the middle of the night, damn it. I was expecting to find a Raquel Welch poster with a tunnel behind it in your room.”

 _Shawshank Redemption_ , a voice that sounded unnervingly like Metatron said in his head. _Oscar-nominated 1994 drama starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, set in prison. You are Tim Robbins’ character in this metaphor, because he successfully escaped_. He fucking hated that voice. There had to be a spell to mute it.

Wait. Acting weird. “I’m not--Dean, Sam, I’m not working behind your back. I mean, I _am_ working behind your back, in a manner of speaking, of course, but...I’m not doing anything nefarious, I swear. I’m working alone, and all I’m doing is hunting. I’ve set aside any notions of my importance in the big plan. I just want to be a hunter. I just want to help. I won’t endanger you. Or the world. ”

Dean made a noise of muffled agony and cast his eyes towards the roof of the cave.

“I’m...I’m sorry I absconded. I just, I thought it would be easier.”

“Easier,” Sam said. “Since when have you ever done anything the easy way?”

“Easier for _you_ ,” Cas said, hating the thread of desperation that wove itself through his voice. “Or, easier for all of us. I don’t know. I don’t...I don’t know what I thought.” The ground was rushing up to meet him. He braced himself against the burning air. “I just, I had to. You two were finally getting some rest and...and I wanted to help, somehow. You didn’t need any more problems.”

“You aren’t,” Dean said, honing the ‘t’ against his teeth until it was pin-sharp, “a _problem_ , Cas.”

“Seriously,” Sam said. “That...that’s not even remotely true.” A muscle in Sam’s jaw ticced. “Look, I know I should’ve made more of an effort with you when you were burning through that borrowed grace, but...”

“What?” Cas briefly wondered if he’d somehow wandered into some sort of alternate universe, one where this conversation made any kind of sense.

“When you were dying,” Sam said. The look of contrition on his face was hard to take.

“What purpose would that have served? You would have been wasting your efforts. You could save Dean. You had no way of saving me. What did it matter where I met my death?”

“Cas, wait, are you...are you dying?” Dean asked. His voice was so quiet it could barely be heard over the flames.

“What? No. No, that’s--not it.”

Dean’s face was equal parts relieved and upset. “Then for god’s sake, whatever it is, just _let us help you_ ,” Dean said. “We’re family.”

“I remember when you said that.” Cas smiled sadly. “There was holy fire involved then, too. A long time ago now.”

“ _Long time ago_ nothing. He said it at least a hundred times in the last six months.”

“Like a brother,” Cas said, nodding, ignoring the way his curiosity piqued at Sam’s words. He had a lot of practice ignoring that part of himself. “It was a nice compliment, Dean. I’ve never forgotten it.” He didn’t add that being like a brother was a world away from actually being one. He also didn’t add that what he felt for Dean was a world away from his understanding of brotherly affection. He’d very nearly let those thoughts free, once, twice, a dozen times, when Dean had smiled a certain way at him, or slid his palm against Cas’ hand when he’d pressed it to Dean’s face to heal him, or let their knees touch under the table at that bar in Hawkins.

“Look, about that,” Dean said, then stopped.

“I’m...gonna go wait in the car,” Sam said, darting his eyes between the two of them. Before he left, he leveled one more look at Cas. “I just want you to know, I’ve been saving _The Jinx_ for when you get home.”

The flames showed no sign of flagging, their sharp red tongues licked at the edges of his grace, one kind of fire against another. There was no wind or rain, nothing in here that might smother the flames before they died down in their own time, years, years from now. Castiel wondered when that started to seem like a long time. Then again, patience had never been his strong suit.

Dean had a flask in his hand. “Pick up your blade, Cas,” he said softly.

“Why?”

Dean unscrewed the top of the flask. “Because it’s part of you, and I don’t like seeing it lying in the dirt.” He poured water over the flames, breaking the line. Then he retreated back a few paces.

For lack of any better option, Cas did as he was told, sliding the blade back into its usual place.

“New threads, huh,” Dean said after a while.

“Um. Yes?”

“Well, you...you look good.”

“Thank you.”

“Aviators,” Dean said, gesturing to the sunglasses on the breast pocket of Cas’ coat. “Classic.”

“Claire’s suggestion. I don’t actually need them.” Cas didn’t know why he didn’t leave. The fire at the mouth of the cave was also extinguished, he could tell. He could walk right out. He could even try flying out, though the odds of that ending in disaster were probably pretty high. Then again, that was true of almost everything he attempted, so maybe it didn’t matter. He felt his wings flex automatically, felt the ionization in the air around him.

He stayed put.

Dean shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Look, man, I’m sorry about this but...you didn’t leave us much choice. We’ve--I’ve been praying but I don’t know if you can even hear them anymore, and you are one elusive son of a bitch.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Cas said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“Yeah,” Dean said. His eyes lost their skittishness and became gentle. It terrified Cas for some reason. “I know you have.”

“I didn’t realize my absence would alarm you two so much,” Cas said. “So if it’s an apology you’re after, you have it.” Apologies were all they ever seemed to get from him.

“ _No_ , that’s...that’s not what this is about,” Dean said. He looked like he wanted to close the distance between them, but didn’t. “I get that you’re a big fan of ghosting--it’s a phrase, Cas, not an actual ghost thing--but, uh, I meant what I said. Something was eating you, and then you just up and left. It was like...never mind.”

“Like what?” Cas asked, curious.

Dean faltered like a pinioned bird. “Like--when you fucking disappeared and then showed up in Idaho five weeks later.”

“Disappeared? I...Dean, you ordered me away and I obeyed.”

“I didn’t...You left with _nothing_ , Cas. You didn’t even _wait_ half an hour for me to get some stuff together for you.”

Again, Cas felt reality fray at the seams. “What? What...stuff?”

“Like, I dunno, things you needed to live, Cas! Food, water, money, a goddamn phone. I told you to hang out while I got in touch with Jody.”

“Jody?”

“I said you were going to go stay with some friends of mine for awhile, remember?”

“No,” Cas said, thunderstruck. “I remember you telling me I couldn’t stay.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, almost to himself. “Probably shouldn’t have led with that.”

“I...don’t remember much of anything from that day, Dean. I remember running an inventory of my possessions. I remember that Sam gave me _walking around_ money. I assumed at the time that was because you’d both agreed I should leave. I remember...I remember you asking me my opinion of an author. Kerouac.”

“Because I was going to lend you some of my books,” Dean said, sounding miserable. “So that we could talk about them on the phone. The phone I was gonna give you. So that I could call you while you were at Jody’s.”

“You hate talking on the phone.”

“Not...not when it’s you.” Dean rubbed his eyes, and when he looked at Cas again, they glinted in the remaining firelight. Tears, Cas realized numbly. “You honestly think I’d just shove you out the door and let you fend for yourself?”

Cas excelled at subterfuge, but direct lying was always a challenge. Now, however, he mustered every ounce of skill he possessed and said: “No.” Some of the haunted look left Dean’s face, and it was worth it, for that. “I...wasn’t thinking at all. I apologize.”

“ _Don’t_ do that.”

“Okay.”

“Damn it.” Dean drew in a deep breath, gripped his temples in one hand so hard that it would likely bruise. “Okay. Okay. Cas, I’m gonna tell you something, and I...you don’t have to do anything with it. But I need you to hear it, alright?”

Strange that he had not sensed the physical trap until the _ping_ of the detonator under his foot, and yet now every particle in him cried out a warning. “Alright.”

“I get that there’s...a _lot_ of messed-up crap between the two of us. Hell, between all three of us. But between me and you? It’d send most people screaming for the hills. I know I got more apologies to make than I’ve probably got days left to make ‘em. And...I just, I get it. If that’s why you ran. I’d run from me, too, after...”

“Dean.”

“No, just...let me finish.”

The word _sorry_ nearly left Cas’ mouth again, but he held it back.

“So, yeah, I get it, if that that’s what happened. You can tell me to take my apologies and shove ‘em, and walk out of here, and I’ll never bother you again. I swear. But if it isn’t? I mean, if you left because you’re having some kind of problem? Then let us help you. Let me help you. Please. Just...please.”

Cas wasn’t sure if that was his cue to start speaking again, but he couldn’t think of anything to say anyway, and so remained silent.

“And, uh, okay the...the other thing you said. About what I said.”

There was nothing to do at this point but wait for clarification that might not come. “Okay,” he tried, because that seemed safe.

Dean let out a sound that was almost a laugh. He began to walk restlessly, straying once or twice near where Castiel was standing, before pulling himself up short and moving away again. “Man, you’re really gonna make me work for it, aren’t you?”

“I don’t understand.”

Dean stopped. “Yeah, I get that.” He shook out his shoulders. A regrouping move. “When, uh, when Lucifer was all up in your grill. He said some things.”

“He’s the Father of Lies,” Cas blurted, and there was that holy fire rush under his skin again.

“Yeah, I know, I know, that’s...what I said, too. But here’s the thing. Lucifer’s a major dick, alright? Not a fan. But the reason he can get under your skin so bad is because he knows what makes people tick. Like a million times worse than those shifters. He builds his lies out of the truth. And, uh…”

“Dean, don’t.”

“It was the wrong word,” Dean said, at the same moment, wide-eyed, like he’d just done something he shouldn’t.

“What?”

“ _Brother_. What you said just now,” Dean repeated. Was he shaking or was there something wrong with Cas’ eyesight? “That’s not...that isn’t how I feel about you, not really.”

“But,” Cas said, swallowing. “You said we were family.”

“And we _are_ , we totally are,” Dean said, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. “But, there’s other kinds, you know. Just as important. But different. You _are_ family. Always will be. Okay? Just--Damn it. Fuck, how do I _say_ this? Okay.” In the space where Dean paused, Cas was weightless. “I know how you feel. About me. Felt. Or, feel, I hope. I know it’s not the same as you feel for Sam. I’ve known for a while.”

The first time Castiel laid siege to Hell, the downward rush into the Pit had been exhilarating, in a way. With the purity of a mission, the chance to descend and lay waste to all before him filled him with sharp-edged pleasure. This felt more like Hell had opened up beneath him while he’d had his eyes fixed on Heaven.

Dean was suddenly much closer. “Cas? Hey, hey. Did you hear me? I said I get it. You know. Same.”

“What?” Cas’ voice seemed to be untethered from his body.

From here it was easy to see that it was concern on Dean’s face, not anger. “I said, same. I mean, if...you still feel the way you did. I need you to know that--that’s what I feel. And I have for a long time. A _long_ time. I just didn’t think that you...well, no, that’s bull. I thought you did, but, uh, apparently there’s this thing called ‘projecting’ and I thought that might be what it was.”

“Like astral projecting?”

Dean did let out a laugh then, but it was a strangely wet sound. “No. Not like astral projecting. Just...forget it. I just wanted you to know that. I freaked when Lucifer started spilling secrets like he’d found your diary. But I had a real _moment_ with Sam later and he said some pretty similar stuff. He was just way less dickish about it. So. Guess I’m just pathetically obvious to everyone but you.”

Cas’ memories of the weeks before his departure took on a slightly different hue. Dean’s constant physical closeness wasn’t new, entirely, though the casualness of it had set something ticking in Cas’ brain, like a clock nine seconds out of sync. He’d felt something shift between them--between all three of them, but between him and Dean most of all--after they’d returned to the bunker. It was not the first time he’d wondered if Dean was flirting with him. No, not flirting. He’d seen Dean flirt with dozens of women, and this was different. But the intent was the same. But always before their relationship had returned to its strange arms-length orbit, and so Cas tried to ignore the things it set in motion in him, as he always did. He felt that dissonance in him now, he felt the time signature falter, attempt to find a new rhythm.

“Oh.”

Dean smiled, but it was unhappy. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “So, there’s that. Um. Listen, don’t feel, I dunno, _obligated_ to do anything, just because that’s out in the open now. We want you to come home. _I_ want you to come home. But only if you want to be there. And, uh,  if you do come home and decide that, you know, _brother_ is the right word after all, and not anything else? That’s...that’s cool. No pressure. We’ll work something out.”

Dean looked simultaneously older and younger than Cas had seen him. It reminded him of the look Dean had worn on the bank of the river in Purgatory. Suddenly he was seized by the urge to catch hold of him, to send out a ribbon of grace, not for healing, but for...confirmation.

 _Everyone loves something_ , he’d once said. He’d discovered that particular power by accident, on the banks of that same river, with Dean in his arms. He hadn’t seen Dean’s soul since the first time he’d been killed and resurrected--it had severed the link between them, erasing even the handprint. But Dean's soul was so close to the surface there. Purgatory had that kind of purity to it.  He’d been struck by the feeling; instantly elated, and just as instantly devastated by the realization that he’d have to trick Dean into leaving him, he’d forgotten to move his arms and hug Dean back.

That was the first time. The last time, he’d been flat on his back with a broken nose and a punctured lung, and all he’d felt was smoke.

He put his hands in his pockets.  

“Look, you don’t have to tell me anything now. Hell, you _shouldn’t_ tell me anything now. You’re rattled. I get it. Uh. I just...wanted you to know that, you know, invitation’s open, long as I’m topside. Or after, if that’s...if that’s better for you. And if you don’t wanna take me up on it, I understand. There’s always gonna be a beer and a bed with your name on it. Always, okay? And, uh...Sam _really_ wants to watch _The Jinx_.” Dean let out a short, sharp breath and nodded, like he was responding to something Cas had said, though as far as he knew, Cas had stayed silent, like Dean had asked. He felt like he was missing something. He almost wished Dean would make a movie reference so that Metatron’s voice would pipe up and fill in the appropriate blanks.

“Right, so, uh, me and Sam are gonna head back to Kansas in the morning. I’m,” he cleared his throat, “I’m gonna be at Bar Dolores. Schiller Street.” He turned away, began walking slowly towards the light at the mouth of the mine. “Think about what I said, and if you...if you want any of it. Anything at all. Come find me.”  

Cas felt a pull towards him. Gravity had always been so easy to ignore, but he remembered it from his time in human vesture. It felt a lot like this. Worse, when Dean looked over his shoulder at him, in the last remains of the fire.

A few minutes later he heard the familiar sound of the Impala’s engine grow distant, then silent. Dean’s flask was lying on the ground, and somehow Cas knew he hadn’t dropped it accidentally. He extinguished the remaining pockets of fire and slipped it into his coat. He took the warding from around his neck and dropped it to the ground, hearing the faint clink of cracking glass.

When he walked out of the cave and back towards town, night had fallen. The stars were sharp as lions’ teeth.

****

The redhead at the back was eyeing him up. He could tell, even from here, taking disconsolate sips of cheap beer. Decades of training had ingrained in him the ability to know, with almost unfailing accuracy, when he was being marked and, with nearly the same level of accuracy, what he was being marked for. Peripheral vision: important for prey animals, spies, and hunters. A lot of the time he felt like all three. Perched between the lurid rainbow glow of the jukebox and the frayed green plane of the pool table, she watched him with an expression that said: Two more drinks and I’m in your personal space; three and I’m in your lap. White skinny jeans and an insinuating cherry pout. Cute. Probably not a prostitute; four or five smiling people were around her, though their faces were smudged and indistinct in the low light, and she occasionally threw out a comment or a laugh at something they said. Probably human, too. You could never be 100% sure, but there were the usual precautions and...wait, no. What the actual fuck, he wasn’t looking for a hook-up right now. Probably not for a while. Maybe never, truth be told, and wasn’t that the damndest thing. The prospect of going to literal Hell hadn’t been enough to dampen his libido (in some ways it had made it more urgent), but the prospect of potentially never seeing...

No. Nope. Nah. Beer. He was here for beer. And maybe whiskey. Definitely whiskey.

Neil Young cried out for a heart of gold over the PA. Red smiled over a drink the color of her hair, and the B-String Brando who’d sighted Dean by the men’s room made an oblique move to the table directly across from him. Now _he_ was definitely on the make. Dean knew the look.

 _Keep searching, buddy_ , he thought acidly, though whether this thought was aimed at Neil, or the other two, or himself, he couldn’t say. He laughed inwardly. _Pal, you’re pathetic. Might as well lock yourself in your room with a pint of ice cream and blast some fucking Adele for a week straight._

Or whiskey. There was always that.

He downed the rest of the beer and considered the lacing of foam left on the glass. He should call Sam. Tell him it was a bust. Cas wasn’t coming, and he had no interest in getting up close and personal with the local wildlife. It’d be good to take some of the heat off of himself, play wingman. The hotel was a five minute walk away, Sam had been in a dry spell for most of the last year; he probably had energy to burn. Though, Dean admitted, Sam had always been way less bothered by dry spells than Dean had. One of the benefits of having a shred of self-worth, he guessed. He laughed to himself again and flagged down the bartender.

“Whiskey. Double.”

The guy threw him a look like he’d been slapped by a fish.

“What?” Dean asked, feeling his hackles rise.

His options were rotgut and something distilled from the tears of unicorns, apparently.

“You seriously don’t got any Jack, or Jim, or something that _won’t_ dissolve my windpipe after two shots?” A year ago he’d have taken the cheap shit. A year ago he’d have drunk rat poison, though, so, here he was, trying to improve himself. Self-improvement took a lot of money.

“Delivery’s late,” the bartender said with an apologetic shrug. Dean wondered how much it hurt to have your tongue pierced like that. “It was supposed to be here four hours ago. Plus, we’re not usually this busy on a Thursday night. You want a tequila shot? On the house.”

Dean drew in a hissing breath. “Man, I dunno. Tequila is the opposite of common sense.” After a beat, he thumped his hand flat on the table and grinned. He hoped it was convincing. “What the hell? Who am I to refuse free booze?”

Dean eyed the tumbler of clear liquid mistrustfully for a moment before downing it with an overly-cheery “ _Salud, jefe_ ”. It scorched all the way down, not the way he liked. He held in a cough. “Smooth,” he said, between his teeth.

“You usually lie much more convincingly than that,” said a voice at his back, making him jump. So much for peripheral vision. It was only through long years of learning not to flinch that he managed to keep his surprise minimally obvious.

Cas slid onto the stool next to him. “Judging by my friend’s reaction, I’m going to assume he’d like a whiskey. The...good stuff.”

“All we got left’s Johnnie Walker Gold,” the barman said, taking Dean’s glass.

“I’ll take the bottle, please.”

“It’s...a hundred and twenty bucks for the bottle.”

“Keep the change.”

Somehow, three fifty dollar bills appeared on top of the bar. Dean couldn’t say from where, because his ability to understand things like cause and effect, as well as how to blink, was suddenly obliterated.

“Thanks, big spender,” someone muttered, and suddenly the money was gone and in its place were a tall, unopened bottle, and two clean glasses.

“Where’d you get all that cash from?” Dean heard himself asking, because of course that was the most pressing issue here, and not the fact that Castiel had suddenly appeared, like something out of a fever dream or...another kind of dream, right when Dean was about to give up and leave. Because if he was here, that meant that he’d considered what Dean and Sam had said on the other side of that holy fire, that he’d considered what Dean had said when Sam went to wait in the car, and that he was saying....

“I won it.” Now a glass of amber liquid materialized in front of Dean. “Last week.” Cas tipped his own glass back and took it in one elegant pull, but Dean was the one whose throat seemed to burn.

“Last week?” Dean asked, picking up his glass blindly. He couldn’t look away from Cas’ face. This probably increased his risk of spilling the entire bottle of goddamn expensive whiskey everywhere, but hey. There was a chance he was passed out, dying in a ditch, and this was actually his brain’s last frantic spasm before the big Lights Out. There was also a chance it was real. Either way, he wasn’t going to miss anything. Cas compensated by not looking at Dean at all.

“I had some time to spend at my leisure. There are riverboat casinos in Indiana. Did you know that?”

Something pinged. “Last week. The siren case. In Gary. You went gambling after you ganked it?” Dean asked, setting his thoughts aside.

Cas made an affirmative noise. “I find it relaxing. And lucrative. You haven’t touched your drink,” he said. Still his eyes remained evasive, and all he gave Dean to study was his profile. Watching him, it felt like they’d somehow stepped back in time—though Cas couldn’t do that anymore, Dean didn’t think, or at least, he didn’t like to do it. Suddenly it was the night that Cas planned to board up Heaven for good and throw himself to the wolves he called his family, all in order to save the world any more pain. Dean downed the whiskey and felt it spread warm and heady through his blood. Or maybe that wasn’t the whiskey.

Behind him there was a commotion, and he spared one quick backward glance. Red and her pack were leaving, tottering and stumbling slightly as they wrestled with their coats. She caught his eye on her way out the door and gave him a smile. She really was pretty damn cute. Two years ago he would’ve been all over it. But now...

Cas shifted next to him, snapping Dean’s attention back to the matter at hand. He’d poured them both another round. Now that his initial shock had worn off, Dean let himself really look at Cas. The coat was an improvement over the previous one: tailored just enough to do the line of Cas’ shoulders a favor--or actually, Dean amended, to do a favor to anyone looking at his shoulders, as Dean was now. The black of the coat against the flash of white from of his shirt was spare and stark as a priest’s collar and served to emphasize the tan of his skin, long line of his neck. And, not that Dean had a priest kink, or anything, (he totally, totally did), but on Cas...it worked. _Though_ , a small but surprisingly loud part of his mind, interjected, _I gotta say miss the original_ _look_. Something about it--even in its later, less becoming iteration, even after seeing it worn by Lucifer--offered a kind mental support Dean wasn’t even aware he’d needed until it changed. One steady thing in a universe that was always throwing a rod.

He’d been so desperate back there at that mine, watching Cas alternately pace like a caged animal and stand stone-still and impassive in the firelight, that he couldn’t any real reading of his mental state beyond acute distress, betrayal, pain. Those seemed to make up the bulk of Cas’ personality, anyway, Dean thought glumly. It was the stuff under all of that that he wanted. Maybe expand that emotional vocabulary to include something nice once in awhile. He knew it was there; he’d caught glimpses of it in the rare moments when the world wasn’t ending.

Now however. Now there was...what was it? Something guarded, yeah. But something else, too. He let himself begin to think about hoping.

Almost immediately, though, the fear crept in, mingling cold and damp with the warmth of the whiskey-gold glow that was kindling in him. Cas wouldn’t look at him, not for more than a second at a time, and Dean was forcefully reminded of the weeks leading up to Cas’ middle-of-the-night departure, all those months ago. Maybe the something else he saw wasn’t what he wanted it to be. He pounded back another shot, turned to face Cas fully.

Dean realized they’d been sitting in silence for some time, though how long, he couldn’t quite say.

“What are you doing here?” Dean asked, then immediately cringed.

“You asked me to come, Dean,” Cas said, finally meeting his eye, and the guarded look wavered, revealing something confused and vulnerable. Cas couldn’t _help_ it when it came to him, Dean realized. For a reason that Dean had never been able to fully discern, he could always find the cracks in Castiel’s armor. Hell, the guy practically offered them up most of the time, offered them right up for whatever knife he thought Dean was holding at the moment.

“That came out wrong,” Dean said, shaking his head. “I just mean…” He faltered, looked down at his glass and remembered it was empty. “I mean that, y’know...I’m glad to see you,” he said in a rush, and his hand shot out almost of its own volition, to land on Castiel’s wrist. The grip was just shy of convulsive. “Like, can’t even tell you how much, man. Thrilled. But…” He cleared his throat.

Cas was watching him now, and he’d almost forgotten just how piercing that could be. He welcomed it as much as he shied from it. His fingers loosened slightly, but he didn’t let go. He looked up, gathering his thoughts. “Friend of my dad’s was a pastor,” he said after a beat, because he had to approach this at an angle or he thought he might fall over. “He once told me angels brought _tidings_. I thought it was bullshit at the time. But now...now  I’m trying to figure out if these are the glad kind or not.”

Cas looked from Dean’s hand on his wrist to Dean’s eyes, deep, like he was scrying for something. It took a long beat, but Dean could see the moment comprehension dawned on his face. The moment grew heavy. The background din of drunken chatter, the sharp _clack_ of pool balls scattering, even the ever present wail of the jukebox (though, as his focus began to narrow, Dean heard Willie Nelson promise that _you were always on my mind_ , and hey, reality might have been going a little ham-fisted with the soundtrack, but it was true)--all of it melted away until all that was left was the universe in three cubic feet in front of him.

“I haven’t been that kind of angel in a long time,” Cas said quietly.

“What...what are you saying?”

Cas shook his head, topped off his drink with his free hand and downed it.  “I can’t--I can’t give you the, uh, tidings you want,” Cas said, and with each word, Dean’s heart seemed to ossify and deaden in his chest. His hand fell away from Cas’ wrist. But Cas was still talking. “Until I...” He took a deep breath, undoubtedly some kind of calming technique he’d picked up from Sam or someone. He looked down at his own empty glass. He was regrouping, Dean could tell. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything,” Dean said automatically. “You know that.” _No he fucking doesn’t,_  a voice that sounded a little like Sam’s said in the back of his head. _That’s what got you into this mess in the first place._  “I mean it, Cas, okay? Lay it on me. I won’t get pissed.”

Cas poured himself another drink. The bottle was emptying rapidly. They’d already swallowed over seventy bucks between them, by Dean’s (increasingly-fuzzy) math. “Save the promises until after I’ve told you.”

That settled dull in Dean’s stomach, though whether it was fear that Cas was going to tell him something truly awful--because he couldn’t, given his baseline for measuring awfulness, imagine what would be the Point of No Return for him; he’d crossed that line before and always managed to stumble back--or that Cas expected his anger for things that fell so far below the baseline that he needed to down half a bottle of booze before he offered himself up to the knife again.

“I’m tellin’ you now,” he said firmly.  He shook his head and held up his hands. “Okay, I _might_ get pissed. I do that. According to Sam I have, uh, anger issues. But, you know I...ever since the bullshit with the Mark, and Amara and...”

 _And that time I beat you to a pulp and then wanted to carve out that heart of yours_. That was something he’d never told anyone. Not even Sam, who took his confession in that weirdly ship-themed motel room with a bowed head and a silent nod, and said nothing except: “When you find him, you can apologize.” He’d wanted the heart, the whole thing, to hold it in his sinister red hands and feel its last spasm. It was Amara, or the Mark, whatever you wanted to call it, he realized now, reading the feelings he’d barely dared to acknowledge, let alone _name_ and reacting to them _._ Taking the old hurts he and Cas had inflicted on each other and making them open their ragged mouths and roar. The rage had felt so impersonal despite the way it burned in him. Because the Mark read it and howled that he could get what he wanted, he could literally have what he wanted. _They_ could have what they wanted. All he had to do was start carving. And even then, when he wanted to kill so badly he actually fucking _salivated_ for it, he...stopped. He contented himself with killing Cas a different way: the kind that let him go on living. He didn’t even need to look behind him to see the look on Castiel’s face.

Angels, with their desperate need to be devoted to something. Nothing could cut worse than being abandoned by the one you chose, of your own free will, to bestow that devotion on. Dean had thought, until this moment, that it was mercy that kept him from the killing blow. Now, he realized, it was just another kind of cruelty. The silence stretched out and frayed. Dean mentally shook himself out. “I might get pissed,” he said at last, “but I’m gonna try my best not to _stay_ pissed. I’ve spent too much of my life that way already.”

Cas didn’t look as comforted as Dean had hoped.

“Man, you gotta believe me.” He forced himself not to fidget. “Or, okay, okay. You don’t believe me yet. That’s...I get it. But…”

“Dean,” Cas said, and damned if Dean’s soul didn’t hang on that one syllable, said in just that tone of voice. “I don’t expect you to change your personality for my sake.”

“Yeah, well, I want to. Not for your sake, either. Or--not _just_ for your sake,” he added quickly. “Just...because I need to. If I want any kind of chance to have any kind of life.” That part was Sam, mostly, and mostly it was right. _Even if I don’t deserve any fucking kind of life, after all the shit I’ve pulled_. That part was him, and the bitch of it was, that part was kinda right, too. He’d been a good person who’d done bad things and a bad person who’d occasionally done good things. He’d broken the world as often as he’d saved it, and he was going to have to live with it. Not to do _penance_ , not the way Cas might have thought of it--and probably always would, though if he got the chance, he was going to work on changing that, too. But some kind of _commitment_ to trying to leave the world a better, less fucked-up place than he’d sometimes made it. And to do that, he needed to live, and he needed reasons to keep doing it. Maybe one or two things, just one or two, he could let himself have, and be glad of it.

Cas was watching him _.Well,_ Dean thought, _there’s one._ Dean had an almost unbearable urge to lean forward and kiss that look from his face, and damn the audience, he was pretty sure the two of them could take everyone in here in a fight. He stayed in his seat.

“So,” he said, letting out a breath like he’d just run from here to Denver--Christ, he hoped he wasn’t getting flop sweat; he used to be _smooth_ at one point. “Come on, man. Whatever it is, you can tell me. Anything, like I said. I want to hear it.” A memory stirred in the hazy corners of his brain, and he held out a hand in invitation. “Talk to me.”

Cas might have felt the same web-tremor in his memory, judging by the look he threw over his shoulder at Dean. He nodded, solemn, poured himself another drink, and then stared down at it as he started to speak. “You remember Dick Roman.”

Not the opening gambit Dean was expecting, but he could roll with it. “Uh, yeah...generally impossible to forget the guy who wanted to turn the world into his own personal all-you-can-eat buffet. Kinda gave Dicks a bad name.”

Cas nodded again. “And you remember why I...why I could see his true form,” he said to his whiskey.

Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat, grateful that the general background noise offered them some modicum of privacy. Still, he wasn’t sure if this was really the place for this kind of talk, surrounded by people who might stumble into the conversation at the wrong moment. He almost suggested having this conversation somewhere private, but then realized: Cas was probably only speaking now _because_ there were so many people around. Things could only get so heated with an audience like this. He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I do,” he said calmly, careful to keep any hint of hardness out of his voice. “And I remember how you really went to the mat for us, even though you didn’t want to.”

“Just cleaning up the mess I made,” Cas said, taking an enormous swallow. There was a sardonic curl to his voice that Dean hadn’t heard in years, but this time Cas directed the edge of it towards himself.

“Man, you gotta let that go,” Dean said. “You did the best you could with bad intel. And yeah, I’m still kinda pissed that you didn’t come to me first thing but...I, you know. I get why you didn’t.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do.” _Am I really gonna say this? Fuck my life. I’m really gonna say this._ “Same reason I stood and watched you for half a goddamned hour while you sold week-old hot dogs to a bunch of high school kids at a Gas-n-Sip.”

“Gas-n-Sip hot dogs are discarded after four hours, Dean. And…” He turned in his seat, just a touch unsteady. “You watched me?”

Dean felt the blush beginning on the back of his neck, fidgeted with his empty tumbler. Belatedly he realized he’d begun to bounce his foot against the strut of the barstool, and made himself go still. “Creepy, right?”

“Is it?” Cas asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

Dean declined to answer that. Instead, he said: “I---you seemed so, so, I dunno. Intent on what you were doing. You were _smiling_ at people. And just, I knew sooner or later, I’d shoot it all to hell. Sam would…” He cleared his throat and winced. “Sam would be healed and, uh, _Ezekiel_ would leave, and I’d swoop in like some great big fucking black wave and drag you back in. And man, I gotta tell you, it pissed me off.”

“Wha--which part?” Cas’ eyes had gone wide.

“I dunno, all of it? The fact that, you know, I couldn’t fucking give you the help you needed. God. The fact that you ended up having to sell hotdogs and scratch tickets. That you could be _happy_ selling goddamn hot dogs and scratch tickets. That I was gonna take that away from you. That I couldn’t fucking _wait_ to take that away from you.” Dean stared mulishly toward the row of liquor bottles behind the bar. There were a few gaps, revealing a dusty mirror. He avoided his own gaze.  

He jumped a little as Cas touched his arm, featherlight, almost tentative. “I didn’t know that.” There was a note of wonder in his voice, and Dean couldn’t work out the source of it.

Something in him seemed to relax a fraction, and Dean found himself turning to look at him again. “Yeah, well. No time for might-have-beens when you’re up to your eyeballs in Armageddon bullshit.”

“No,” Cas said. “I suppose one’s last night on earth doesn’t leave much time for indulging in…” He knocked back the last half of his drink. “Sentimentality.” He paused, pouring two more shots and not noticing the way Dean’s mouth fell open. He raised his glass. “Though, I seem to remember indulging in a few of these with you, during one or two of them.”

“So, you were saying?” Dean asked, flexing his hands in an attempt to keep them to himself. It only struck him a moment too late that Cas was warming up to him in a way he hadn’t for a long time, whether from whiskey or proximity or…something else entirely, Dean couldn’t say. He felt the air cool subtly.

“Remains.”

“You wanna elaborate a little?”

 _Not really, no,_ said the look on Cas’ face, but he continued, staring at his glass as he spoke. “Remains, or...or _scars_ , I guess. Though scars aren’t--they aren’t _active_ the way this is. I could see the Leviathan, and Dick Roman, because when they...when they were in me, they left…” He seemed to be fighting with his words. Eventually he pinned some down, though it looked like it cost him. “I told you that possession opens a line between the angel and its host. That’s true for all beings. A creature will always leave a remnant in its vessel...”

“Like Gadreel left some of his juice in Sam.” And wow, okay, _that_ sounded wrong. Thankfully they were being ignored by pretty much everyone around them. “You went digging around for it.”

Cas looked up, surprised. “He told you about that?”

Now it was Dean’s turn to look away. “He mentioned it. A while ago. Said you got all philosophical about a damn sandwich.”

The corner of Cas’ mouth twitched upward momentarily. “Strategy. It had the desired effect.” He turned serious again. “There will always be a trace. It resonates through the host, long after the possessor is gone. Forever, in fact, barring, um, miraculous intervention.”

“But you pulled it all out of Sam, didn’t you? He said you…”

Cas shook his head. “Not all of it. The procedure was too dangerous to see to completion. He would have died. Not that he cared. But I did.” Something bright sparked up in Dean’s chest at the conviction in Cas’ voice, and he found himself leaning in a little closer, wanting to grip Cas by the arm. But Cas was still talking: “Removing Lucifer’s grace was, of course, also dangerous but...leaving it in was unthinkable. Besides,” he said, looking into the middle distance, as though working through a math problem, the kind of math that probably hadn’t been invented yet. “That wasn’t so much as removing it as shifting it to another host. Anyway, you don’t have to worry, it’s gone. Crowley’s resonance, I was able to burn out of Sam when I healed him. And what remains of Gadreel’s grace is so faint as to be inconsequential. Sam is still Sam, still your brother, and only that.”

“Right...” The ghost of an idea was beginning to gather in his mind, shivering mist taking on form, even if he couldn’t quite see it yet. He suddenly felt disagreeably close to sober as he watched Cas in the dim light. “So you got up close and personal with Dick and that gave you some kinda... _resonance._ ”

“Yeah,” Cas said. The word was leaded, final like a bell-toll.

“You mean like some freaky--bond thing? Like with…” He dropped his voice. “Amara?”

Cas looked startled, like the comparison had never occurred to him. “I...in a way, I guess so, yes. Different, in that Amara wanted to--to call you to her. The annihilation she wished to bring was that of complete unification. As it was in the beginning, et cetera.”

“Resistance is futile.”

“Mm. The Leviathan wanted to devour. That was their only goal. He designed them, I suspect, in Her image. Guilt, maybe. But I--um, I get the sense that He never really _got_ Her, as you say. That was, perhaps, the first flaw in the design. But no, they never _called_ me to them. The bond was incidental, as they usually are. I think they found it more amusing than anything.”

Dean suppressed a shudder. “They’re gone now,” he said firmly. “Supermax, remember? I mean, I get Purgatory’s not a hundred percent sure thing, but I’ve learned to live with ninety nine percent. In pretty much everything.”

Cas nodded, but, if anything, he looked sadder than before.

“Okay, I’m hearing a ‘but’ in here, and I’m not exactly sure where or why.”

“Dean, my Father is gone.”

“Yeah, and? Not like He did all that much when He was around.”

“That’s true,” Cas said. “Except for the miraculous intervention part.”

Dean furrowed his brow, waiting for any of this to make sense. “He sat on His ass for a few millennia and traded weather reports with his gardener. He let a lot of bad shit happen.”

“He brought me back, Dean. Over and over again. And I know He did it to teach me a lesson, and I know that I deserved it. But--but at least He was merciful enough to wipe the slate clean every time, more or less. Reset my grace, if not my memories.”

“Woah, hey,” Dean said, palm out, placating or supplicating, he wasn’t sure. But Cas had the bit between his teeth now, and ran on, his voice low and burning.

“He’s _gone_ now, Dean. There will be no more miracles. No more resurrections, at last, but also no...no resets. What I’ve got now, I’ve got to live with until, until I don’t have to anymore.”

“What you’ve got _now_?” Dean asked, aghast at pretty much every word he’d heard in the last two minutes. “Cas, what do you mean _what you’ve got now_? Rowena lifted that curse, Lucifer got eighty-sixed and…”

“And he resonates in me still,” Cas said, turning his wild eyes to look at Dean, seeing and unseeing all at once, like a man in the depths of a fever. “Don’t you understand? He was in me for _months_. He even…he even _healed_ me, Dean.” Cas said the word _healed_ like it was a curse, something vile that he couldn’t stomach.  

Dean sat there for a long, excruciating moment, fighting against the whiskey in his bloodstream and his residual shock at sitting less than a foot away from Cas after months of chasing his shadow. Something wasn’t connecting, like a spark plug with a corroded wire. Christ, why couldn’t he _think_? “So, what, you...you’re saying Lucifer left some of his grace in you.”

Cas nodded, one short jerk of his head, and his eyes--his eyes.

“I mean, we know that, Cas. We--I know how the whole possession thing works. Trust me, man, that wasn’t our first rodeo. Or yours. It wasn't even your first time being....” _Oh god, don’t say ‘ridden’. Focus. The guy’s clearly in serious fucking distress here, Winchester._ He finished with a helpless wave of his hand.

Cas didn’t notice Dean floundering. He pressed his lips together and looked away. “You don’t understand,” he said. His voice snagged, even rougher than usual, like the words scraped his throat on their way out.

“Then help me out here, man. You still got Lucifer, uh, _resonating_ in you and it’s, what--can you...can you _feel it_?” He dropped his voice. “Wait. Is this like Sam’s first round in the Cage?” The bright spark that kindled when Cas spoke of healing Sam suddenly glared ugly, spreading like wildfire. He grabbed Cas’ arm, nearly knocking over the forgotten whiskey bottle. He couldn’t keep his damn hands off of him and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.

Cas shook his head. For a moment his distress was replaced by confusion. “No, this is---it’s different. Lucifer was never truly with Sam, once Sam was back. That was a hallucination. I took on Sam’s trauma, and Sam’s trauma was...amplified by being in the Cage. A confluence of possessor, possessed, and environment, unprecedented in all of history.” He paused. “Michael, at least, will have shut his vessel’s awareness down. Mercy in that, if nothing else.”

“Nice of him,” Dean said grimly, ignoring the stab of guilt.

There was the suggestion of a laugh from Cas’ side of the bar, but it was a dark burr of sound, sardonic. “ _Nice_ has nothing to do with it. Standard operating procedure. Adam was less than nothing to Michael. He would have found his distress distracting, not amusing. It was Sam he wanted. And he’s insensible himself, now, apparently.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably on the bar stool and cast a sidelong glance at the bottle, but opted instead to focus again on Cas. “Well, Sam’s not down there anymore, so they both lost their favorite chew toy. But you…look, you’ve gotta give me something to go on, here.”

Cas took another deep breath, then another. Dean wondered who’d taught him that, a strangely physical, strangely _human_ form of calming. Cas was silent so long that Dean was was beginning to fear he’d flipped some kind of radio silence switch and they’d be sitting here until the next Apocalypse rolled through town. “Dean, I’m _compromised_.”

Dean blinked and sat back. “Com--” he began, only to be interrupted by the bartender, who’d made himself scarce for the last hour, rapping his knuckles on the bar. Dean blinked, as though he’d just woken up from a particularly intense dream. And not the good kind, with Tina Louise and late-80s Harrison Ford (or, he admitted, with Cas and an impossibly roomy back seat).

“Last call, fellas.”

Well, shit, they’d been sitting there longer than he’d realized. A quick glance around revealed that most of the crowd had thinned, leaving a few diehard booze hounds and one very drunk woman in a cocktail dress, who was holding her shoes and swaying slightly as she glared down at her phone. Jim Morrison's spooky baritone curled like smoke through the air.

“We’re good, thanks,” Dean said, knowing that the rasp in his voice probably betrayed him. The words _I’m compromised_ rattled around his head, heavy like hex bolts, threatening to crack the inside of his skull. “We’ll take it to go.” He sent off a quick text to Sam: _Got him. Talk in the morning,_ and set his phone to silent.

“Need me to call you a cab?” the bartender asked, nodding his head pointedly towards the depleted bottle.

“Nah,” Dean said, picking it up by the neck and hearing it slosh. “Did the environmentally-friendly thing and walked. Cas, c’mon.” He spoke easily, aiming for offhand but certain, like, _of course you’re coming with me, Cas, not even in question_ , and fought the Orphean urge to look behind him as he walked out the door. The alcohol in his blood softened the October night. Or maybe it was the racing of his heart that did it. He didn’t even shiver.

For a few breathless paces, he heard nothing to indicate that Cas had followed, but then the sound of Cas’ footsteps, familiar as rain on Baby’s roof, met his ears. The tight feeling in his chest ease incrementally. Still, the word _compromised_ was thudding against the corners of his mind with every step, and he sought to hold it still so he could look at it. Cas caught him up and they walked in silence for a moment. Their breath followed them like banners.

_Sam is still Sam, still your brother…_

Dean slowed down, and Cas with him, as though by unspoken command. Dean veered into a side street, a row of duplexes with grass turned white by early frost.

_Lucifer was never truly with Sam._

The motel was practically within spitting distance now, but this was a walking problem, not a stare-at-the-ceiling problem. And he didn’t feel like pacing the length of the room like a caged tiger, sharpening his teeth all night.

_Still your brother, and only that._

“Dean?” Cas finally broke the silence, cutting a sidelong glance at him.

_Only that._

They walked to the next streetlight. Dean had a sudden memory, the colors impossibly bright: an incantation bowl, a ceramic blade, and the brief look of naked terror on Cas’ face as Sam made the cut across his palm. He’d described it as a ‘roll call’, but it was more than that, Dean knew.

_I’m compromised._

Dean inhaled, the cold air sliding sharp into his lungs. They stopped, and Dean looked at Cas under the wan yellow glow.

“This...doesn’t look like a motel,” Cas said, frowning at the house in front of them. There was a trampoline in the yard and a slightly unsettling collection of gnomes by the door. “Or any kind of hostelry I’m familiar with.”

Dean’s fingers dug into the stiff fabric of Cas’ coat. “Compromised?”

Castiel’s attention jolted back to him, like a sloppy cut from a bad movie. His eyes darted between Dean’s, and Dean saw the way his jaw tightened, felt the subtle pressure change around them, like some great presence had retreated and pulled the air away with it. “Lucifer. In you. Cas, you’re…”

Cas nodded. “Yeah,” he said, to somewhere to the left of Dean’s boots. “I’m sorry.” He made to turn away, back the way they’d come, back god knew where. Dean held him tighter, pulling Cas towards him, and almost dropped the bottle he was holding. Cas staggered forward a step, practically colliding with Dean. He looked at Dean’s death grip on the lapel of his coat like he didn’t understand how, exactly, hands worked.

“You’re saying you’ve got Lucifer riding shotgun in your head and instead of letting us help you, you _bolted_? Has he been talking to you?”

“I...what?” Cas looked up and Dean’s breathing faltered, but he didn’t let go. He didn’t know if he actually could. “No, I don’t have Lucifer...riding shotgun.”

“Then _what_?”

“I _told_ you,” Cas said, sounding irritated. “Resonance. He possessed me. His grace is _in me_ , Dean, and there’s nothing I can do to--remove it.” He swallowed and met Dean’s eyes directly. “He’s a part of me. Now, and forever.”

 _No more resets._ “But it’s not like it was with Sam,” he said instead, diving headlong away from that thought.

Cas shook his head. “It’s, it’s not the same as an angel possessing a human being. It’s--I could no sooner remove Lucifer’s grace from my own than you could remove individual blood cells from a transfusion.”

Dean frowned and reluctantly dropped his hand. “You...are you okay? Does it hurt?”

Cas took a small step back. His confusion was obvious, even in the weak beam of the lamp. “I...No. It doesn’t hurt.” He paused. “But yes, to answer your earlier question,  I can feel it. A slightly different frequency. An older one. Even corrupted as he was, Lucifer still had…” He paused again, glancing upward into the sodium gleam above them. He was, Dean realized, probably translating in his head, trying to find a way to make Dean understand that which was beyond his knowing. “It’s the sound of Heaven,” he said finally. “But different than I’ve ever heard it. It’s like hearing a language you once knew how to speak, seeing a place you can _nearly_ reach.” He looked at Dean, squinting. “It almost _aches_ but not…” Abruptly his eyes grew wild. “Dean, I have to confess. I almost enjoy it.”

Whatever Dean had been expecting, that wasn’t it. He had no love for Lucifer, or any of his murderous, asshole siblings.  And yet watching Cas as he spoke of Heaven, of all that had been lost to him, caused his throat to tighten like someone had grabbed him under the jaw. He swallowed against it. “Okay,” Dean managed to say.

“ _Okay_?”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said, more firmly this time.

“Dean…” Cas looked like he’d just taken a punch to the solar plexus.

“Dude, you’re, I dunno...you’re nostalgic, or homesick or--or something. But you’re not _compromised_ , whatever the hell that means.”

Dean had trouble placing the expression on Castiel’s face, then, but it looked dangerously close to a full system crash. From nowhere, he imagined Cas smoking out in a pillar of broken white light, leaving Dean staggering and stupefied and alone in the street. Panicked, he grabbed Cas’ hand again.  “Man, is this why you went all Richard Kimble on me?”

The system rebooted, but barely. “Why I left? Of course it’s why I left, Dean. You---try to understand, I’m altered. Fundamentally. Down to the subatomic level. I can’t be trusted. There’s something _wrong_ with me. I mean, there’s always been something wrong with me, but this...”

“ _What_?” It took a second for Dean to register the shattering noise as him letting go of the bottle and splashing roughly forty dollars’ worth of booze on the pavement. Cas flinched. He crouched down, out of Dean’s hold, and reached out, like he was going to pick the broken pieces of glass up, one by one. Somewhere to their left, a dog barked, and a light switched on. Shit. The reality of their situation hit him: two drunk men standing in the middle of a suburban street at two a.m., having an argument about the Devil. “Leave it,” he said urgently, glancing around. Cas looked up at him. His eyes were dark and uncertain. “Leave it, come on.” He stooped, dragging Cas back up by his shoulder. He turned them back toward the main road. “Motel’s a block over, across from the Taco Shack.”

“The Duck Inn.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see your car there,” Cas said, letting himself be lead. Probably his bewilderment and...whatever else he was currently processing made him docile. Dean decided not to wait for Cas to snap out of it.

“Parked in the back.”

“Sam’s there, too?”

“You know it.”

“Dean,” Cas said, so quietly that it was almost drowned out by the sound of a passing car. “What you said….earlier. Back at the mine.”

Dean was grateful for the cold autumn air, keeping the heat in his face and neck down to the level a minor house fire. But he held on to Cas and nodded firmly. “Offer still stands. I meant it, okay. This don’t change that. You’d have to do a hell of a lot worse than a Satanic blood transfusion to get me to change my mind.” He pretended not to cringe as a man in a grey hoodie walked past, just as those words left his mouth.

“I _have_ done a lot worse.”

“Cas, we’ve been through this. You wanna make a list of all the shitty things we’ve all done and we can compare who’s the biggest screw up? One: we’re not doing that, because that’d be depressing as fuck and B: you’ve always, always tried to put it right, Cas. You’ve made messes and you’ve cleaned ‘em up, a hundred times over. Some things, you just gotta let go, okay?”

“Yes, I’ve pondered that advice many times in the interim.”

“I’m not exactly Ann Landers here, but I feel like that one was pretty solid.”  The motel came into view. On its sign, a duck spread its wings in neon stages. Their shoes brushed weeds that pushed up from the cracks in the pavement. They grew in spite of the cold, pale green things that had outlived their season.

Dean put the key in the door, then paused. “I mean, I get it. I do. The past’s a hard to carry. People like us? That’s a ton of existential crisis in a half-ton bag. “ He turned the key and pushed Cas into the room, eager to get him in one place. Practically greedy to share the same air. “And yeah, okay. Maybe you’re not the kind of person who can let it go, and you’re gonna have to carry it with you everywhere. Nothing you can do about that.” He shut the door. “But man, sometimes you’ve got to let someone carry _you_.”

Dean never realized the back of someone’s head could be so expressive. He saw the words slowly land on Cas, as though they were changing him, syllable by syllable, under the skin. “Like you and Sam carry each other,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” Dean said, lowering his voice to match, and nodding even though Cas’ eyes weren’t on him. Maybe it didn’t matter. “Even when we’d rather lay down and die than go forward, we pick each other up and keep going. We’re not lay-down-and-die-people in this family. That’s just not who we are.”

Cas dipped his head forward at that. His collar was skewed from where Dean had been pawing at his coat for the last few hours. The back of his neck looked surprisingly vulnerable. Dean wanted to rest his cheek there.“No, I suppose it’s not,” Cas said. He turned to face Dean. “You have always been remarkable men. The most remarkable I’ve seen. And I’ve seen many, in my time.”

Dean instinctively shied away from the praise, but he held himself steady for Cas’ sake. His instincts might be pin-sharp in all things hunting-related and most things bedroom-related, but he had to admit they were pretty crap in everything else. “Thanks,” he said, hoping he sounded sincere. “You, too,” he added, knowing he did.

Cas made a sound like the air had been pushed abruptly from his lungs. It might have been a laugh. “Where’s Sam?” Cas asked, glancing around the room like Sam might have been hiding behind the minibar, or under the bed.

“Room 17.”

Cas squinted. “Two rooms away? Why?”

 _Actually, yeah, why_ two _rooms away and not next door? Wait. Oh._ “Uh. He, he needed space. Some kind of...meditation thing.”

“Meditation...thing.”

Dean shrugged in a way that he hoped conveyed nonchalance, but probably didn’t. “Hey, it’s Sam, what can I say?”

“Alright.”

“So,” Dean said. “You, uh...where’d you park?”

“Off Main Street. Good lighting.”

“That’s four hours max. You--are you planning on heading out soon?”

“No I…” Cas rubbed the back of his neck. “I...my car won’t be detected. I could leave it there for a year and no one would realize it.”

“Wait, the Masai thing?” Dean pulled his head back in confusion. “It’s a handy trick, but it’s not _that_ powerful.”

“Not on its own, no. I imbued the car with a spark of grace. Amplified its effects.”

“Damn. Smart.”

A smile flickered across Cas’ face. “Thank you.”

The implication of Castiel’s words sank in and Dean’s heart started triple-timing in his chest. “So you’re, uh, you’re staying?” He took a step forward, then checked himself. “For how long?”

“Dean…”

Dean put his hands up, his pulse giving up entirely for a moment before resuming its frantic pace. “Sorry, forget I asked. You...do you. I just--I just wanted you to know that I meant what I said back there. Don’t feel _obligated_ or anything.”

He wanted a lot of things from Cas, things he could barely name yet. But he wanted Cas to exercise that free will he’d paid so dearly for when he gave them. If he gave them. Cas had been gone months doing god knew what between hunts, meeting….meeting _people_ and having experiences. And that wasn’t exactly new, Dean admitted. But the fact that he had time and space to care about it now, to think about what it might actually mean? That was new. And it fucking sucked. How long, exactly, did it take for an angel to fall out of love with you once they realized you weren’t the only game in town? Cas was devoted to him--him and Sam both--and would be til the day they all died. He’d bet the farm on it. But the other thing? Satanic possession probably called for a thorough reassessment of your life choices. Dean had managed to push this line of thinking aside, focused as he was on just _finding_ Cas. But it was impossible now, watching Cas watch him from across the room. He felt that deep ache he’d carefully numbed for years spread its roots further into his heart.

_Why did it take me so long to realize how beautiful you are?_

“Dean, you look unwell. You should sit down.”

Dean sat, for lack of a reason not to. “I could use a damn drink.”

Cas moved towards the minibar.

“No, no, no, those things are like, three hundred per cent overpriced.”

“Well…” Cas said, uncertainly. “You had a bag full of MDMA in the car a while ago.”

“You _found_ that?”

“It was in with a box with garuda feathers and a cassette tape labelled “Boner Jams 06”.”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Awesome.”

“I’ll go fetch it for you, if you like. Although I’d have to remove the alcohol from your blood before we take any.”

“ _We_?”

“Um. Yes?”

“You doing drugs now?” Something cold slid down his spine.

Cas’ eyes moved back and forth as though he wasn’t sure why Dean was asking such a dumb question. “I...don’t have any intoxicants in my system at the moment, no. Other than alcohol.”

“No, I mean. Drugs? You’ve been doing drugs like some, some... _jazz musician_?”

“Dean, you started smoking cannabis when you were thirteen years old. Though,” he said, thoughtfully, “I’m glad you largely moved on to things that don’t require smoking. You have to keep your lungs healthy in this line of work.”

“How did you…Right. The Gospels. I forgot.”

“Mm. And the hyper-vigilance that hunting instills predisposes the human mind towards paranoia, anyway.”

“Weed doesn’t make me paranoid,” Dean said, crossing his arms defensively.

“No?” Cas sounded surprised.

“No, I...wait, this isn’t about me. Where’ve you been getting them?”

“Various people. One woman gave me a bag of ketamine and half a kilo of cocaine as a, uh, a _fuck you_ to her ex-boyfriend. He was being physically violent towards her and I...well. He won’t be harming anyone again after our talk.”

Dean ignored the low-down warmth that ignited and said instead: “Ketamine and _half a kilo_ of coke? Jesus _Christ,_  Tony Montana. ”

“They were both...interesting,” Cas said, looking into the middle distance. Then he shrugged. “Can’t say I have any great desire to take them again, though.”

That pulled Dean up short. “Really?”

“Feelings of god-like omnipotence.” Cas visibly shuddered.

“Oh.”

“Fortunately, with my metabolism, the high was brief.” He glanced down and then back up at Dean. He looked almost shy. “The...physical sensations were nice.”

“Yeah,” Dean said quietly. “That’s...part of the appeal, I guess. Physical sensations.”

“I’ve discovered I’m quite the fan. In certain contexts.”

“Certain contexts,” Dean said, slowly, tasting the words. “Certain...contexts?”

Cas raised an eyebrow and looked steadily at him. “So, do you want it?”

The question nearly laid Dean out flat on his back. “Do I...want…”

“The MDMA. From the car.”

“Oh. Uh. Sure. Yeah. That.”

Something cunning glinted in Castiel’s eyes before his face took on a look of perfect guilelessness. “What did you think I meant?”

 _Oh. That’s how it is, is it?_ His toes flexed in their boots. “The stash. Definitely. That’s what I thought you meant. That’s--that’s what I want.”

“Of course. If that’s what you wish, I’ll get it for you. Is it in the same place?” He stepped forward, watching Dean’s face carefully. Dean guessed that he shouldn’t be surprised. For all his bluntness, Cas was a strategist.  A terrifyingly good one, if Dean was honest. And he knew Dean better than almost anyone on the planet. He’d borne witness to Dean’s evasiveness, his denial, his... _bullshit_. He wasn’t going to make a direct move. He was afraid Dean would run, and he was giving him an out.  

“Yeah,” Dean said eventually, holding out the keys. He let his index finger brush along the inside of Cas’ wrist, under the cuff of his coat, as he reached forward to take them. A deliberate move, and from the look in his eye, Cas knew it.  For some reason, the hair on Dean’s arms stood on end.

“You should probably make yourself more comfortable.”

Dean nodded and immediately began shrugging off his jacket. Cas took that in with an appraising look that made Dean want to shiver. Cas took that in, too, then walked out the door. He wondered if Cas noticed that he’d stayed perched on the edge of the bed ever since Cas told him to sit down. Likely. He leaned down and worked off his boots, sliding them under the bed.

He debated about the overshirt for so long that he heard the key scrape in the door, heralding Cas’ return. For a moment, Cas looked like he was surprised to see Dean still in the room, but he tried on an uncertain smile. Curiosity began curling through Dean’s blood. “Hey,” Dean said.

“Hey.”

“Just...making myself comfortable.” Dean tilted his head down but kept his gaze aimed upward, heavy and unwavering, just shy of a challenge. Batting his eyelashes wasn’t gonna do it here. That wasn’t the way Cas worked, it wasn’t how either of them worked. That’s not the kind of creatures they were. “Like you said.” He slid the overshirt off of his shoulders in slow, determined movements. Not the most conventional striptease he’d ever done, but, watching the way Cas swallowed, possibly the most effective.

“Find what you were looking for?” Dean dared to ask, after a long moment of letting Cas look at him.

“Yes,” Cas said. His voice broke over the word. Then he blinked, like he just realized where he was. “Your--stash.” He took a bag from his pocket and held it up. “Looks like you’ve indulged recently.”

“Nah, not for a few years,” Dean said. “Sold most of it to the owner of some shitty nightclub in Minneapolis a month back so Sam could get access to the cellar.”

“Minneapolis?” Cas asked coming over to the bed and standing very nearly between Dean’s legs. “What was in Minneapolis?”

“Pixies. Not the band.”

“ _Pixies_?” Cas asked, his eyes shot wide. “It’s been years since I had any direct contact with the Fae.” He looked away, frowning. “Centuries, maybe. I’ve lost track. I had no idea you two were on a possible Fae case.”

“Yeah well, one you didn’t manage to poach from us,” Dean said. He was surprised at how easy his grin was. But Cas looked instantly contrite.

“I’m sorry, Dean, I just--I wanted to help and I didn’t…”

“Hey, hey, hey, time out. I’m not pissed at you, okay?” When had he grabbed Cas by the hips? God damn, sometimes Dean forgot just how solid he was. _That’s really gonna test_ my _hip flexibility_ , he thought, pulling Cas in closer. He shook himself. _Cool it, Dean. God damn_ . He sighed. “I know you don’t believe me, but just...pretend like you do. Anyway, yeah. Pixies. Bitey little bastards.”

“They _bit_ you?” Cas asked, alarmed. Suddenly Dean’s chin was being tilted up and Cas was staring frantically at Dean’s face.

“Nah, but they tried. Accused us of being, and I shit you not, ‘fairy agents’.”

Cas relaxed, and made to drop his hand, but Dean held it in place. Cas’ fingers tightened just perceptibly, but his voice was steady when he said: “Makes sense. How’d you kill them?”

“Kill ‘em? We didn’t. We just made them move to the loft. That nest was gonna cause structural damage.”

Cas looked impressed. His thumb moved a fraction across Dean’s chin, almost brushing his lip. Dean felt it like an electric current, and once again, he felt his hair stand on end for a second. Now that his arms were bare, he knew Cas could see it. “And they can still hear the music from the club,” Dean added. He only just managed to keep his voice from cracking. Cas’ pulse jumped under Dean’s fingertips.

“That was very smart, Dean. And merciful.”

Dean didn’t feel the need to admit that the no-kill rule had been Rowena’s (though the idea for simply moving the nest had been theirs). That the person that put them on the case was Rowena, in fact. Because that would mean admitting they had Rowena’s number in their phones; that they’d done her a _favor_ in exchange for her help finding Cas. That could wait for another time, a time when Cas’ hand wasn’t warm against his face, and he wasn’t staring at Dean’s mouth like he was calculating all the things he might be able to get it to do.

“Thanks,” Dean whispered, and this time he couldn’t keep his voice steady.

“Hmm,” was all Cas said in response to that. “Are you ready?”

 _That’s funny,_ Dean thought _, I’m pretty sure I knew how to breathe a minute ago._   “What?”

Cas held up the bag and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh,” Dean said, nodding his head as much as he could. “Yeah, uh. Yeah, definitely. I’m ready for that.”

“It has a half life of about seven hours. Will you be okay to drive in the morning?”

Dean rolled his eyes.

“I’m serious, Dean,” Cas said, tilting Dean’s head up more and making him shiver again.

“Sam can drive in the morning,” Dean said. “But...maybe just a half for now.”

Cas nodded. “If you’re not okay, let me know, I’ll see if I can do anything for you. I’ve uh, never tried this before.  Hold on, this might feel...odd.”

“Odd,” Dean echoed. “Odd how?”

The hand against his face suddenly glowed white-hot, and he felt the clean cold rush of grace pouring forth. That part, he expected. The next part, though, not so much. He felt it vibrating through him, something many-voiced, a hundred thousand bells, making his body into a choir. He felt it illuminating his bones. The notches of his spine lit like arc lamps. Something good and sugar-sweet and completely fucking unexpected, like opening the door to an abandoned power station and finding a home. It was over in less than two seconds.

His eyes slid open. He was boneless, Cas was the only thing keeping him upright. “Holy fuck,” Dean gasped. “That’s never happened before.”

Cas glanced down, cautious, completely at odds with whatever it was he’d just done. “I cleaned up your bloodstream.” His other hand rested on the back of Dean’s neck now. Cas could put him in any position he wanted when he felt like this. He kinda hoped he would. But Cas was content to let Dean blink slowly up at him from where he sat.

“Ha, yeah, I bet,” Dean said, gradually regaining structural integrity. He did feel sober, actually, and for once he didn’t mind at all. “That was...that was...what _was_ that?”

“Just...saying hi,” Cas said, looking shy again.

“ _Hi_? Did you just...get to third base?”

“Dean, if that’s a sports metaphor, you know I’m not going to understand it.”

Dean just grinned and opted to go with yes. “Gotta be honest with you, I think half a tab of E’s gonna really pale in comparison now. But maybe you can, um, _say hi_ to me again later.”

“If...if you want.”

“Dude, yes.”

Cas looked like the smile had been startled out of him. “Okay.” He scored one of the tablets with his thumb nail and broke it in the middle. Then he reached out and gently held Dean’s face again. “Open your mouth.”

There wasn’t a chance in hell Dean wouldn’t immediately obey. Cas wasn’t lewd about it, didn’t let his thumb linger in Dean’s mouth any longer than necessary, but Dean twisted the sheets between his fingers anyway as he swallowed. _Fuck._

“What about you? There’s nineteen left in there. That even gonna put a dent in you?”

Cas looked thoughtful as he took the other half. “Doubtful. But I’ve still got a considerable amount of alcohol in my system. I’ll just take a few and see what happens.”

“See what happens,” Dean said, laughing. “Right.”

****

What happened was this: twenty minutes in, Dean felt himself dissolve slightly, go soft at the edges, lay across the bed in the electric cloister of the motel room, ask Cas to turn off the light and watch him as he walked back, the curling arabesques of energy that crackled from him as he moved through the soft dark. Cas shed his coat along the way, a long slow slide that left Dean out of breath.

Thirty minutes in, and he started spilling his guts. “You look,” Dean said, feeling the jostle slightly as Cas settled next to him, “really fucking amazing in that outfit.”

“Thank you.”

“But, I...I miss the old look, too. The whole holy tax accountant thing.”

“Really?” Cas’ voice was equal parts surprised and amused, and Dean turned his head to follow the pull of it.

“Yeah,” Dean said, pressing himself against Cas’ side. “The first one, anyway. The second one...not as good. But still good, you know? I mean, you _always_ look good. It’s just...I don’t even know. I don’t know how you manage it. Just. Really. Beautiful.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cas said. The Venetian blinds cast long shadows over the bed, and a stripe of light fell across Cas’ eyes. “But I’m pleased to hear you find me so.” A pause. “I feel the same about you.”

Dean laughed, feeling it shimmer through him like a heat mirage. He buried his face in Cas’ hair and then he inhaled as deeply as he could. “You smell like desert air.”

The amusement in Cas’ voice took on a different shade. “Is that good or bad?”

“Good,” Dean said, smiling against Cas’ neck. “Like driving with the windows down just after it rains and all you got in front of you is open road. The desert goes absolutely nuts after it rains, you know that? Of course you know that. Just,” here he made starbursts with his hands, “flowers, fucking...just billions of red and purple flowers as far as you can see.”

Cas answering laugh was low and warm, and Dean wanted to curl up in it. “I suspect that might be the drugs talking,” Cas said. “But thank you.” He reached across and laid his palm flat against Dean’s chest, and Dean interlaced their fingers there. His pulse was as loud as the whole world.

****

“You know you’re not the first boy I’ve kissed, right?”

“I’m not actually any kind of boy at all,” Cas said, looking up at him and tilting his head against the pillow. It made his hair even messier. “But yeah, I knew that. You’re not the first for me, either.”

“No shit?”

“None.”

“Who was the first?”

“An ER nurse from Blue Earth, Minnesota. He was nice.”

“ _Blue Earth_  as in…”

“The Whore of Babylon.”

“No way.”

“It does seem unlikely,” Cas said amicably. “And yet so did this, twelve hours ago.”

Dean dropped his forehead to Cas’ chest and tried to contain his laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“I dunno whether to be super turned on, or really fucking jealous.”

“I vote for the former, if that’s any help.”

“Sure, yeah,” Dean said, leaning down and kissing him again softly. “Whatever you want.”

“Hmm,” Cas said, attempting to chase Dean’s mouth as he pulled away, and failing. Dean had him pinned by the wrists, which was an utterly pointless move, he knew, but Cas was proving to be a very good sport about the whole thing. “Anything?”

“Yup.”

“I’m not going to hold you to any promises you make while you’re high, Dean.”

“Aw, man.”

“I’ll just make you promise me again in the morning, when you’re sober.”

“Deal.”

****

“I don’t even remember his name,” Dean said, groaning as Cas dug a knuckle into a sore spot between his shoulders. For some agonizing reason they were still mostly clothed. Dean had moved to Cas’ belt buckle and had somehow ended up distracted. Now he found himself sitting between Cas’ thighs (which is what he’d been expecting from this encounter) as Cas kneaded the muscles in his back (which was not). He felt comet trails of grace sink into his skin from every pressure point.

“Who?”

“The first boy I kissed. Do you know?”

“Why would I know?”

“You know everything. You...Gospel-reader.”

Cas kissed his neck, and Dean felt it resound for a moment, like ripples in a pool. “That never made it into the reports. It wasn’t deemed relevant. Didn’t make it into the Gospels either, remember.  I guess because your father...”

“Nah, dad didn’t care.” The phrase, said so lightly, rattled through the room. “Well, I mean. He cared. He just...he didn’t want me getting stomped for it, you know? The places we tended to hunt weren’t exactly...open minded, especially not then.”

“Oh.”

“He said ‘you do what you want, Dean, but for God’s sake be careful. There’s people out there who’ll kill you as soon as look at you for that.’ Said I couldn’t let my personal life endanger our family. And I mean, he was right. I had Sam to consider.” Cas wrapped both his arms around Dean’s chest and Dean’s vision nearly whited out. Grace or MDMA or both, who the fuck cared. “So it was just easier to...not. Most of the time, anyway. You know? I mean, chicks are awesome, right?”

“Very.”

“Yeah, so. I just...mostly didn’t.” Cas’ breath was comforting on the back of his neck. Dean leaned against him, tipping his head back to rest it against Cas’ shoulder and speak to the ceiling. “Still, a good, um, good income stream.” He felt tired all of a sudden. “You know about that, too?”

“Yes.”

“Relevant to your reports, huh?”

Cas shrugged against him. “It can be dangerous work. Dangerous in a different way to hunting, I mean. It’s not the sacred profession it once was. It doesn’t carry the same protections now. We had to know all the risks you were taking.”

“Heh. A job’s a job. It was pretty boring most of the time.”

Cas ran his fingers through Dean’s hair. Dean was pretty sure he was turning molten. “I think I accidentally became a prostitute in Indiana.”

Dean burst out laughing. “ _Accidentally_? How...how is that even possible?”

“After the hunt, I got a cup of coffee. I left the diner and I--well, I was having something of an existential crisis. I, I wanted to return to you. I think you were praying to me, but I’d, uh, turned all the dials down. I...loitered. On the corner.”

“And some John rolled up and propositioned you?”

“No, a woman who’d been in the diner at the same time came up and talked to me. She was very pleasant. Asked if I needed some company for the night.”

“No way.”

“I wasn’t sure she wanted to have sex, of course. But I was tired and I needed a distraction, so I went with her.”

“You sly dog.” Dean turned in Cas’ arms to kiss him again. “Guess you were safe, since you’re all mojo’d up again.” His hands trailed southward, as slowly as he could stand it.

“That was my thinking, yes.”

“Wait, you’re not gonna get a bunch of calls in nine months asking for child support, are you?”

“You mean nephilim? No, those can only be sired when…” He broke from his story to grab Dean’s wandering hands and hold them against the bed. It was like having them in iron. “When both parties actively want conception to happen. Biology is a consideration, of course. It’s impossible to occur accidentally.” Cas kissed him, hard, and ignored his efforts at freeing himself. “Anyway,” Cas said.

“Oh, you dick.”

“Anyway,” Cas said again. “It was...educational. And suitably distracting. In the morning, I got dressed, thanked her for the company, and left. When I stopped to get gas, I realized she’d put a hundred dollars in my pocket.”

Dean threw his head back and laughed until he couldn’t breathe.

****

“Dude, why are you _torturing_ me?”

“Just take a drink, Dean, you’re dehydrated.”

“Fine.” He turned on the tap and wincing as the pipes squealed. “But then can we _please_ deal with this situation?” He gestured angrily towards his crotch. “Pretty sure I’ve got at least seventy five per cent of my blood below the belt here and it’s making me a little woozy.” He downed the glass of water, and then moaned appreciatively. It felt like every cell in his body was parched. “Oh my god, that’s good water.” He tipped back another one. “Oh, man.”

“That’s enough,” Cas said, suddenly behind him. “Come sit down.”

****

Cas wouldn’t fuck him. “Ask me in the morning,” he said, watching Dean struggle to get out from under him, get some friction going, _something_ .  He did, however, say “hi” one more time, pressing Dean into the bed and kissing him, and Dean’s whole body _reached_ , every molecule and cell of him arched up to catch the flood of grace that rained down on him. Behind his eyelids he saw a wheel of white light that dissolved itself into stars. He got the impression they were looking at him and smiling. Then he passed out.

****

He was woken by the smell of something amazing hitting his nose. For a moment he floated in quite possibly the world’s most comfortable bed, trying to place it, and where he was. And who he was. Then he remembered and his eyes sprang open. He had, on the outside, probably three seconds to decide whether or not to panic. He felt it hissing up from its usual place, ready to crush him in the usual way. He took a breath and…

Damn, that coffee smelled fantastic.

He sat up. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand and looked towards the doors. Cas sat watching him from one of the chairs by the window, sunlight streaming in behind him. There were two paper coffee cups on the table next to a styrofoam box. Dean had seen a lot of really goddamn phenomenal things in his life, but this was threatening to knock most of them off the list.

“Hello,” he said. His voice was rough with overuse and oversleep.

“Hi,” Cas said. “Sam and I got you breakfast.” Dean always assumed Cas would be the grumpiest person alive in mornings, but he seemed almost...buoyant.

“Sam...and you...got me breakfast.”

He opened the styrofoam box. “He said you were partial to the bison steak.”

“Aw, man. You guys went without me?”

“You were sleeping very soundly. It seemed a shame to wake you.”

“What time is is?”

“Just after ten.”

“We’re gonna miss check out.”

“Sam booked another day.” He watched Dean closely, and Dean felt himself begin to blush. “He said we’ll go back to the diner tomorrow morning, if you’re still up for it.”

“Oh yeah? What else did Sam say?” Dean asked, climbing out of bed on unsteady legs.

“A lot of things,” Cas said, holding out the cup of coffee. His eyes were soft and serious. “I missed him. A great deal.” He took a breath, then said, with a note of uncertainty that set Dean’s teeth on edge: “I’m--I’m glad to be with you two again. Thank you.”

Dean felt his eyes prick with tears, and busied himself blowing on his coffee. “No need to thank us. You know we want you around. Long as you want.”

Dean tried to make the silence uncomfortable as he ate, but found that he couldn’t. The sight of Cas’ shoes placed neatly by the door arrested him. His eyes drifted down and he took in the unexpectedly delicate lines of Cas’ ankle, the arch of his sole. It struck him as absurdly intimate, considering. He finished his meal and stumbled to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He walked back out, wiping his hands on his jeans, then cleared his throat.

“You said to ask you in the morning. So. I’m asking.”

Cas didn’t even attempt to hide his surprise. For a moment, looking at him, Dean had a flashback to Apocalypse 1.0, sending Cas away to get acquainted with one of the women who worked in the “gentlemen's club”. But the expression was different, now that he looked again, less fearful and more hesitant.

“You were giving me an out,” Dean said.

“There was a distinct imbalance in our levels of intoxication. I was sober again by four o’clock. You weren’t.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “I was sober enough to get a hit of grace to the, oh, _everywhere_.”

“You didn’t like it,” Cas said, sounding small.

Dean gawked. “It was fucking awesome, what are you talking about?”

“Oh,” Cas said. The relief on his face was stark. “I’m glad.”

“So? Are you going to make me ask a third time or what?”

No. Cas rose, pulled the curtains closed, and stepped over to him, intent and watchful.  Dean felt a tremor work itself through him at his approach. He stopped a few inches away and all at once, Dean felt like he’d never kissed anybody before in his life, let alone _this_ person, who he’d just spent hours acquainting with his tongue the night before.

That first kiss. Tentative. Shy even. And suddenly Dean was sixteen on a hill behind a drive in theater where Alicia Silverstone walked down the stairs in a white dress, and the dusk was full of fireflies, and there was a dark-haired boy holding his shoulders and pressing their lips together and Dean could do anything, anything, anything.

And then he was almost forty, in a mid-rate motel in Colorado and there was an actual angel sliding its hand around his waist and he didn’t even fucking care about whether he was heading upstairs or down. There was nothing to do but roll the windows down, turn the music up, and fall in love.

 _Well,_ Dean thought, letting Cas shepherd him towards the bed. _One down, two to go_.

Cas’ breath seemed to catch in his throat as that thought filled Dean’s mind, and he broke the kiss to take in his face. “Hm?”

Cas was starry-eyed as he sank down on the bed and smiled. “Come sit down.”

Dean moved to sit next to him, but Cas grabbed him by the back of his legs. “No. Sit down.”

 _Yep_ , Dean thought, as straddled Cas’ lap, feeling a muscle in his inner thigh protest. _Definitely gonna test my hip flexibility_. He started working at the buttons at Cas’ shirt like they’d personally offended him. Which they had. The hours of frustration from last night came rushing back to him and he redoubled his efforts, pressing himself down on Cas’ lap like he was getting paid for it, and kissing him because he wasn’t. Finally he got the damn shirt open, congratulating himself at only losing a couple of buttons in the process.

“You gonna let me actually get your fucking belt open this time?”

“If you don’t, I will.”

“Thank god.”

Cas just laughed against the side of his face, then leaned back on his elbows to let Dean work.

“Fuck,” Dean said, once he’d succeeded.

“Agreed.”

“No, I mean. I’m just saying. Pretty nice, man.”

“Thank you. I...had nothing to do with it.”

“Well didn’t we _both_ just luck the hell out.”  

He could feel Cas’ hands sliding up his sides. With none of the frantic restraint he displayed last night, he was slow and steady, following Dean’s movements with his own. He seemed content to let Dean set the pace now that he had Dean where he wanted him (the fact that he wanted Dean straddling his lap and pressed against his bare skin made Dean push against him harder), and so Dean finally pulled away from their kiss to gasp against the side of his mouth. “Now would be a good time to--” Cas kissed him again, and having that tongue in his mouth was _awesome_ , why hadn’t he been privy to this information _years_ ago?---”God, okay, now would be a great time to get me out of these clothes. Please?”

Cas blinked slowly at him for a moment, looking far more drugged than he had at any point the previous evening, and Dean felt a surge of pride. “Cas, clothes. Seriously, please. Please?” There was more than a little desperation in there, and he hoped Cas could hear it.

It seemed he did. Cas’ attention came back from whatever non-English detour it had taken, and he nodded, undoing the button and zipper of Dean’s fly in about two seconds flat, all without breaking eye contact. Then he moved his hands to Dean’s shirt and tugged at the shoulder. “Get this off,” he said, “so I can look at you.”

And the kicker of it was, he said it without even a suggestion of a leer, sounding hopeful and sincere, but it hit Dean harder than any overtly sexual command. It was suddenly unbearable that he was still wearing a shirt when Cas wanted to look at him. It was _imperative_ that he remove it so that Cas could do just that. He dragged it up over his head so quickly that he heard a few seams give way. “A little help?” Dean asked.

Cas reached behind Dean and grabbed the shirt, clearly intending to pull it the rest of the way off of Dean’s arms, but then, in a sudden flash of inspiration (Dean had a certain kind of practical genius, he occasionally admitted to himself), Dean flexed his hands and locked his elbows in towards the small of his back, effectively trapping himself. “Like this is good.”

Cas squinted at him in confusion. “You can’t use your hands like that.”

“Nope.” Dean grinned at him. “Guess I can’t.”

Dean could see the moment understanding found Cas. Dean felt the impromptu binding dig in around his arms as Cas tightened his grip. He watched Dean intently as he did it, clearly wanting to see if he’d read the situation right. Dean leaned forward and kissed the side of his face. The muscles in his chest stretched as he did. “That’s the idea,” Dean said encouragingly. Cas nodded, and let his gaze wander across Dean’s body.

Dean had once, in Corpus Christi, seen a group of sailors disembark after long months at sea. They looked at the shore the way Cas looked at him now. Dean forced himself to sit still and not shy away from the frankness in that look. He felt Cas’ free hand move to the small of his back and dip below the waistband of his boxer shorts to push him forward another inch, until there wasn’t a sliver of space between their hips, made slick by a combination of sweat and precome. Dean bit lightly at the muscle between Cas’ shoulder and neck to keep from making too much noise.

They moved together for a few long moments, the quiet of the room punctuated by the sounds of their increasingly harsh breathing. The situation was quickly reaching critical.

“Cas, can we…”

“Anything,” Cas said, without waiting for Dean to finish his sentence. Then again, Dean was starting to slur his words; maybe Cas didn’t trust him to remain coherent. “Anything you want.”

Dean straightened his arms back out and shrugged until he was free of his shirt. Cas released him at once, like he’d said it out loud. “That’s--that’s a risky thing to offer,” Dean managed to gasp out. “There’s a lot of stuff I want.”

Cas went still, like the eye of a storm. “Dean,” Cas said, a dark burr of sound that made goosebumps rise on Dean’s skin. “Given our history, trust me when I say: anything you want.”

Dean nearly lost it then. He didn’t know why those words got to him-- whether it was the truth of them hitting him, like the first flash of light after a long darkness---or whether it was the way Cas said them. Probably both.

“What do you want?”

“Uh.” Dean  tried to explain, and couldn’t. “Everything.”

“Don’t--um, I don’t know how to do this quantumly.”

Dean laughed against Cas’ neck. How strange, to taste the salt from his skin. Dean didn’t even realize he could sweat. Maybe he considered it an indulgence. “Just…” He pushed against Cas’ shoulder, and Cas went over easily, falling without hesitation. When he was able to think clearly, he’d have to ponder that metaphor. He’d have to do a lot of things. He shifted around so they were both fully on the bed and pulled Cas’ trousers the rest of the way off. “Let me look at you.”

Cas let him, watching him curiously from the depths of the bed. Dean ran his hands along the planes of his chest, the broadness of his shoulders. Just getting accustomed to the landscape, learning it all like it might be taken away from him again. He traced the drumlins of his ribs, along the elegant black lines of his tattoo, and caressed the ridge and furrow of his hipbone. He watched the jolt of Cas’ pulse for a moment, then moved his attention downward.

“They don’t teach this in Sunday school,” Dean said, attempting wry but failing. He changed his grip. “Pretty sure this is the definition of ‘iniquity’ right here.”

“Maybe,” Cas said, panting. “But I figure, I full-on rebelled against Heaven. Iniquity’s one of the perks.”

Dean let out a bark of startled laughter, sliding his hand back down. Then he frowned in thought.

Cas could apparently read him like a book. “Whatever position you want,” Cas said, twitching at the change in pressure, as Dean grazed his fingers lightly along his erection. Dean’s hand came away wet.

“ _Fuck._ I didn’t bring any lube,” Dean said miserably. _Because I am a pessimist and an idiot._ “Damn it!”

“I don’t...think I need any.”

“ _What_?”

“I, um, I mean, I used some before, but...that was just so the, uh, the man I was with wouldn’t get suspicious. But it wasn’t actually necessary, not the way it is for you. Though, I’ve gotta say, it was a very nice addition.” Cas said, smoothing his palms along Dean’s arms. Dean could feel the heat from them soak into his skin. “It’s okay,” he said gently.

“You don’t have to. Next time.”

“No, that’s...okay. Okay, yeah. This is good,” Dean said, feeling his heart do its best to climb out of his mouth. “We’ll try it the other way around another time.” He fumbled with his own jeans for a second, then took a deep breath and slid his hands under Cas’ thighs, massaging the muscles there, and slowly working inward as he angled Cas’ hips. He licked his palm several times, until the saliva ran down between his fingers, and wrapped his hand around his cock, hissing a little at the throb it sent through him. Then he lined himself up, nudging gently and feeling that top-of-the-roller-coaster feeling in the pit of his stomach.

 _There._   _Jesus Christ. Right there. Is this what I’m like?_  

“You don’t need... _anything_? Really? You sure?” he asked and waited for Cas to nod, a touch impatiently.

“I just...I feel like, you know, I’m going a little light on the foreplay here.”

Cas raised his head from the pillow and glared at him. “We just did _four hours_ of that, Dean.” Cas let his head fall back. “Now would you please _move._ ”

 _Patience. Never one of his strong suits_ , Dean reminded himself. He laughed a little, then said: “I--haven’t done it this way before, so, uh, go easy on me, okay?”  

Cas raised his head again, looking concerned this time. “Dean…”

Dean didn’t let him get the rest of the sentence out. He slid home in one slow, slow movement and fell forward, landing with his elbows on either side of Cas’ head. “Wow. Okay.”

Cas let out an inspiring noise, but opted to lean up and bring their mouths together instead of using words. Dean moved carefully, even though it was evident that Cas was right. _Next time we do it this way_ , he thought hazily, turning his head to kiss Cas’ wrist where Cas had tangled his hands in Dean’s hair. _Lube. An entire bottle of it, just for fun_. _And, like, an_ ** _hour_** _of prep._ The thought buzzed around his head as he began to pick up the pace. Cas was almost, but not quite, silent, and if Dean wasn’t able to watch his face and see the way he was completely unraveling, he’d have assumed it wasn’t doing much for him.

 _Next time_. Cas said _next time_. The realization was enough to push Dean over the edge. He couldn’t even find the will to be embarrassed that it had taken under ten minutes. A familiar hot-cold rush--different than grace, but then not so different--washed over him. His ears rang as he collapsed onto Cas. He was surprised to find that he was laughing.

“Sorry, man, I, uh…” He sat up, and rubbed one of eyes. His hand came away wet for a second time. “I won’t leave you hanging.”

“Appreciated.”

Dean smiled as he laid back down, tight against Cas’ side, tangling their legs together and reaching down to wrap his hand around Cas. He forewent anything showy in favor of being thorough and slow. It didn’t take long for Cas’ head to tip back, and it seemed a shame to let all of that exposed neck to go unattended, so Dean began kissing him there.

Miracles were messy things. For so many years, Cas had given them--given _him_ \--miracles, not so much performing them as pulling them out like teeth, one by one, bloody. Now, he gave one more: a miracle in three syllables. This time it was easy. As he came, a flicker of grace spread across Cas’ skin, like heat lightning. The glass face of the bedside clock cracked.

Dean stared at him, dumbstruck, and leaned over to kiss him--he never wanted to stop kissing him--and brushing his hair from his forehead. Cas opened his eyes and settled his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I won’t leave you ever again,” Cas said quietly, “unless you require it.”

“So, never, then.” Dean said. “Never.”

“Alright.”

*****

“Christ.” Dean’s fingers went slack, aching from where they’d curled into the sheets.

Castiel refrained from making a comment about anointment, since he wasn’t sure it was appropriate in this scenario. He opted instead to run his hand down the long line of Dean’s back. The sweat had collected in the subtle indentation of his spine. He appeared almost gilded in the soft yellow light of the bedside lamps. Well, there were more profane things to worship. Here, in the quiet of their bedroom, it was a rite of mutual adoration. Sometimes. Sometimes it was just fun.

“That was...to your liking?”

Dean fidgeted, and Cas moved from between his legs, until he was kneeling on the bed next to him. He helped Dean roll over. He moved as though his bones had become less solid in the last half an hour.

“Uh, yeah. That was...I think, if I tried to walk right now, my knees’d give out.” He let out a long breath. “So, gold star for you.”

Cas ducked his head, smiling. He arranged himself beside Dean and thought of nothing in particular, other than that he was glad to be alive.

After a long time, so long that he was certain Dean was almost asleep, Dean spoke.

“Cas.”

“Hm?”

“I get that...this is probably shitty timing but…”

The gold turned gray. “But what?”

Dean sighed, wouldn’t look at him. “Look, if, uh if. Ugh. Okay...I know the whole...human-and-mythical-creature thing...usually ends up, you know, not working.”

“Dean.”

“Like, _really_ not working for the human half of the equation…”

“D _ean_ , stop.”

Dean turned to him then. “I’m just saying. I still want to.”

The gray turned gold. “Me, too.”

Dean grabbed his hand. “Even if it gets bad?”

“Even then.”

“Probably will, knowing our luck.”

“We _have_ had some hard days together, you and I.”

“Harder days coming, maybe.”

“Maybe. I don’t mind.”

“No?”

“No.” Cas kissed him and felt the days, even the hard ones, lay themselves out like offerings in front of him. The future was without form, but they would come to know it, to learn the name of things to come. To shape it, even. Dean smiled up at him, genuine and sweet. “I don’t mind.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [BurningTea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea), who is a wonderful beta reader, for all your help, and to [Kitt3ns](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kitt3nz/pseuds/kitt3nz) and the entire Crying Crew for well, letting me cry.
> 
> However, if one or two pesky typos slipped through, just point them out and I'll fix them.
> 
> ETA: Just to clear up some confusion, I'm not on twitter as "ExpatGirl", someone else, who isn't in the SPN fandom, has that handle. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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